
Class L 

Book 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 



THE CITY SUPERINTENDENT 
AND THE BOARD OF EDUCATION 



BY 

WILLIAM WALTER THEISEN, Ph.D. 



TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO EDUCATION, No. 84 



PUBLISHED BY 

JBmtljtvB ffloU^gp, (SnUtmfaia UnroprBttg 

NEW YORK CITY 

1917 






oq\^ 



Copyright, 1917 

by 

William Walter Theisen 



0k \S'^^ 
SGI.A470844 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

The writer is indebted for the successful completion of this 
study to the hundreds of persons who have participated in one 
form or another in its making. He is indebted in particular to the 
members of the seminar in Educational Administration, to Pro- 
fessor Milo B. Hillegas, to Professor Ellwood P. Cubberley, and 
to Professor George Drayton Strayer for valuable criticisms and 
suggestions. He is especially indebted to Professor Strayer, who 
first suggested the problem and through whose untiring efforts 
in enlisting the cooperation of others the study has been made 
possible. 



m 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction vii 

I. The Board and Its Duties 1 

1. Cities of the Study 1 

2. The Question of Legal Limitations 3 

3. The Duties of a Lay Board of Education .... 6 

4. The Work of Board Committees . . . . . . 32 

5. Summary . 59 

II. The Administrative Organization 61 

1. Need of Considering Administrative Organization . . 62 

2. Types of Administrative Organization 68 

3. Administrative Organization in Other Fields .... 81 

4. Summary 99 

III. Authority Given the Chief Executive 101 

1. Matters of Instruction 101 

2. Matters of Business 120 

3. Summary 124 

Conclusions and Recommendations 125 

Appendix A: Proposed Rules and Regulations . . . 127 

Appendix B: Bibliography 133 



INTRODUCTION 

1. The Problem 

The problem of this study is to discover how lay boards of 
education provide for the administration of city school systems 
through professional chief executives. The study is concerned 
with an analysis of the practices of boards of education in cities 
of various sizes, together with an attempt to evaluate such prac- 
tices. It is an attempt to discover what functions boards of edu- 
cation themselves perform, as a body or through their commit- 
tees, what functions are delegated to executives, and how these 
functions are delegated. 

Questions which the study seeks to answer in part at least 
are : What are the duties that lay boards perform ? What is the 
nature of matters receiving the attention of boards ? What kind 
of data do they require as a basis for determining school policies ? 
What functions are delegated to committees? What functions 
are delegated to executive officers ? What is the form of admin- 
istrative organization provided? To what extent do boards rec- 
ognize professional leadership in administrative matters and in 
initiating school policies? Constructively the study seeks to 
discover the duties that are important for a lay board to perform 
as opposed to those that are trivial or that are professional and 
administrative. It seeks to discover those functions that should 
be delegated to the professional chief executive and his assist- 
ants and the scope of authority that should be given them. And, 
finally it seeks to discover how, with such functions delegated 
to professional executive officers, a lay board may exercise effi- 
cient control of the responsibilities imposed upon them by the 
state. 

2. Criteria 

An effort will be made in this study to use objective measures 
as far as possible. These will be supplemented by the results of 

vii 



viii Introduction 

a group of judgments and by analogies with similar practices in 
the fields of business and city administration. 

The first criterion which we may apply is use or waste of 
salaried professional skill actually purchased. As a corollary to 
this may be added the employment or non-employment of the 
highest degree of skill available for the salary paid. It is a fair 
measure to place an unfavorable evaluation upon that board 
practice which employs a superintendent for the professional 
service he is capable of rendering, and then either, on account of 
the board's own ignorance or egotism, fails to utilize this pro- 
fessional skill for which it is paying. In this category may be 
placed such matters as the failure to recognize the professional 
character of educational leadership, the failure to give the super- 
intendent as chief executive the power to control the educational 
aspects of all departments of the system, or the failure to give 
him the necessary authority to secure the results of which he is 
capable. 

A second criterion which may be applied is economical use of 
time at the board's disposal, e.g., as represented by the distri- 
bution of time in board meetings. The assumption in this case 
is that the consideration which different matters coming before a 
board will receive is, roughly speaking, inversely proportional to 
the number of questions considered. The practice which gives 
lengthy consideration to trivial matters with the result that large 
and important questions are passed upon with scant treatment 
or that attemps to deal with fifty questions in one meeting when 
it has time enough to consider adequately only a few large ques- 
tions is not to be considered on the same plane with one that 
centers its attention on important matters, and leaves adminis- 
trative details to i>e attended to by the professional leaders it 
employs. 

A third criterion to be used is precision or definiteness, i. e., 
acting on adequate or inadequate information in determining 
school policies as in such matters as the budget. The practice 
which passes upon a budget containing ten items in lump sums, 
not knowing whether they represent the actual school needs in 
relation to the financial ability of the city or not, is not to be 
compared in point of administrative efficiency with that which 
passes upon a budget knowing just what proportion of its funds 



Introduction ix 

is to go for each of the different forms of service — adminis- 
trative control, supervision, teaching, text-books, fuel, supplies, 
janitor service, repairs — that knows how these proportions com- 
pare from building to building, from year to year or with sim- 
ilar items in other cities; that knows how these items compare 
in terms of per pupil cost; that knows something of the reasons 
for differences in cost ; that knows how large a burden may rea- 
sonably be placed upon the taxable wealth of the community for 
education in the light of what it must spend in other endeavors ; 
and that knows whether or not it has secured ample returns from 
previous expenditures in the way of achievements. 

As a fourth criterion, though largely subjective, we may 
use familiarity displayed by a board with its own actions. We 
may evaluate unfavorably the action of a board that permits 
committee judgments to serve without question as board judg- 
ments on matters of policy or administration; that accepts com- 
mittee reports without discussion or that does not require ade- 
quate reports of executive officers nor discuss them. 



THE CITY SUPERINTENDENT AND THE BOARD 
OF EDUCATION 



CHAPTER I 

THE BOARD AND ITS DUTIES 

The purpose of this chapter is primarily to consider the duties 
of a board of education and of its committees. It is aimed to 
select, if possible, from the wide range of duties performed by 
boards of education, those duties which are of vital importance. 
It is aimed to select those that are worthy of a board's attention, 
as opposed to those that are of trivial importance or that are pro- 
fessional in nature and which ought therefore to be delegated to 
the superintenaent or his assistants. There are those who 
fear that in the modern demand that the superintendent be given 
large powers, the board of education will have little left to do 
and, as a result, will not attract to its membership the commun- 
ity's most capable citizens. We shall present in this chapter a 
tentative list of the more important duties of a board of educa- 
tion, ranked in their approximate order of importance as judged 
by several hundred competent judges. As to the proper func- 
tion of board committees, the writer does not hope to reach a 
complete solution of the problem in this study. A thorough 
solution of the committee question would require a special inves- 
tigation in itself. We shall present the evidence found, viewing 
it in the light of certain other factors which influence. We may 
to a certain extent evaluate the work performed by committees 
from the standpoint of the duties that should be performed by 
the board as a whole and in light of the same criteria that are 
to be applied to the larger body. 

1. Cities of the Study 

Table I gives the cities whose rules and regulations were ana- 
lyzed.^ In it is given also the population of each city to the near- 

1 In two of these cities the board publishes no rules and regulations. 
In one of these the writer made a personal investigation in some detail to 

1 



2 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

est thousand as given by the last Federal Census, the size of the 
board, and the number of board committees for each city. Table 
II gives the cities whose minutes were examined. 



TABLE I 



City 



W (J 



City 



PQ u 



1. Norwalk, Conn... 25,000 

2. Chester, Pa 39,000 

3. Cleveland 560,000 

4. Akron, Ohio 69,000 

5. New York 4,767,000 

6. Salt Lake 93,000 

7. Waltham, Mass. . . 28,000 

8. New Orleans 339,000 

9. Wausau, Wis. . . . 17,000 

10. Grand Rapids ... 113,000 

11. St. Louis 687,000 

12. Yonkers, N. Y... 80,000 

13. Detroit 466,000 

14. Rochester 218,000 

15. Fall River, Mass. 119,000 

16. Minneapolis 301,000 

17. Syracuse 137,000 

18. Newton, Mass. . . 40,000 

19. Baltimore 558,000 

20. New Haven 134,000 

21. Bridgeport, Conn. 102,000 

22. Newburyport, 

Mass 15,000 

23. Boston 671,000 

24. Denver 213,000 

25. Covington, Ky. . . 53,000 

26. Louisville 224,000 

27. San Francisco . . 417,000 

28. Cedar Rapids, la. 33,000 

29. St. Joseph, Mo... 77,000 

30. Evansville, Ind... 70,000 

31. Fort Worth 73,000 

32. Moline, 111 24,000 

33. New Brunswick, 

N. J 23,000 

34. Elgin, 111 26,000 

35. Spokane 104,000 

36. Houston 79,000 

37. Laramie, Wyo. . , 8,000 

38. Lead, S. D 8,000 

39. Topeka 44,000 

40. Nashville 110,000 

41. Chicago 2,185,000 

42. Providence 224,000 

43. Winston-Salem, 

N. C 17,000 

44. Sioux City, la 48,000 

45. Cape Girardeau.. 8,000 

46. Seattle 237,000 

47. Greeley, Colo. . . . 8,000 

48. Calumet, Mich. . , 33,000 

49. Lebanon, Pa. ... 19,000 

50. Pawtucket, R. I.. 52,000 



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51. Portland, Ore. .. 207,000 

52. Terra Haute 58,000 

53. Paterson 126,000 

54. Richmond 128,000 

55. Brookline, Mass.. 28,000 

56. Pittsfield, Mass... 32,000 

57. Columbus, Ohio . 182,000 

58. Joliet, 111 35,000 

59. Omaha 150,000 

60. Lincoln, Nebr. . . 44,000 

61. Indianapolis .... 234,000 

62. Beverley, Mass. . 19,000 

63. Brockton, Mass... 57,000 

64. Central Falls, R.I. 23,000 

65. Westport, Mass.. 3,000 

66. Waterbury, Conn. 73,000 

67. Philadelphia 1,549,000 

68. Harrisburg 64,000 

69. Schenectady 73,000 

70. Pine Bluffs, Ark.. 15,000 

71. Fort Smith, Ark.. 24,000 

72. Montgomery, Ala. 38,000 

73. Manchester, N.H. 70,000 

74. Joplin, Mo 32,000 

75. Lockport, N. Y.. 18,000 

76. Freeport, N. Y.. 5,000 
17. Everett, Wash. .. 25,000 

78. Oakland, Cal. ... 150,000 

79. Fargo, N. D. ... 14,000 

80. Charleston, S. C. . 59,000 

81. Boulder, Colo. . . 10,000 

82. Wakefield, Mass.. 11,000 

83. Wichita 52,000 

84. Johnstown, Pa. . . 55,000 

85. Charlotte, N. C. 34,000 

86. Columbia, S. C... 26,000 

87. Racine, Wis 38,000 

88. Newport, Ky. . . . 30,000 

89. Worcester, Mass.. 146,000 

90. Milton, Mass. . . . 8,000 

91. Holyoke, Mass. . 58,000 

92. Lawrence, Mass.. 86,000 

93. Kansas City, Mo. 248,000 

94. West Point, Nebr. 1,800 

95. Pierce, Nebr. . . . 1,200 

96. Cortland, N. Y... 12,000 

97. Fremont, Nebr. . 9,000 

98. Portland, Me. . . . 59,000 

99. Middletown, N.Y. 15,000 
100. Winchester, Mass. 9,000 



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determine what is the actual practice. The other is a small city with 
which the writer was for a number of years intimately connected in his 
capacity as superintendent. 



The Board and its Duties 



City 



TABLE II 



City 






1. Seattle 237,000 5 

2. Pittsburg 534,000 15 

3. St. Louis 687,000 12 

4. Reading 96,000 9 

S.Worcester 146,000 30 

6. Newark 347,000 9 

7. Albany 100,000 3 

S.Milwaukee 374,000 15 

9. Somerville, Mass. . 77,000 14 

10. Lancaster, Pa. ... 47,000 7 

11. Muskegon 24,000 6 

12. East Orange 34,000 5 

13. Grand Rapids 113,000 9 

14. Lincoln 44,000 6 

15. Omaha 150,000 12 

16. Fremont, Nebr. .. 9,000 6 

17. West Point, Nebr. 1,800 6 

18. Pierce, Nebr. . . . 1,200 6 

19. Schenectady 73,000 S 

20. Dunkirk, N. Y.... 17,000 8 

21. Millville, N. J 12,000 5 

22. Topeka 44,000 13 

23. Framingham, Mass. 13,000 6 

24. Whitehall, N. Y. . . 5,000 5 

25. La Porte, Ind ... 11,000 3 

26. Benton Harbor . . . 9,000 6 

27. Boise, Idaho 17,000 6 

28. Bloomington, Ind. 9,000 3 

29. Kewanee, 111 9,000 — 

30. Burlington, Vt. . . 20,000 6 



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5 
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31. Paducah, Ky 

32. Salem, Mass 

33. Council Bluffs, la. 

34. New Orleans . . . . 

35. Richmond 

36. Carthage, Mo. . . . 

37. Owatonna, Minn.. 

38. Martins Ferry, O. . 

39. Waterloo, la 

40. Bellaire, O 

41. Mansfield, O 

42. Plattsmouth, Neb.. 

43. Wichita, Kans. . . . 

44. Lead, S. D 

45. San Antonio 

46. Mitchell, S. D . . . 

47. Des Moines 

48. Winfield, Kans. .. 

49. Kalamazoo 

50. Ypsilanti 

51. Chatham, N. J 

52. Louisville 

53. Montclair 

54. Bridgeport 

55. Chicago 

56. Jersey City 

57. Cleveland 

58. Elizabeth 

59. New York 

60. Los Angeles 



PM 

23,000 

44,000 

29,000 

339,000 

128,000 

■9,000 

6,000 

9,000 

27,000 

13,000 

21,000 

4,000 

52,000 

8,000 

97,000 

66,000 

86,000 

7,000 

39,000 

6,000 

2,000 

224,000 

22,000 

102,000 

2,185,000 

268,000 

560,000 

73,000 

4,767,000 

319,000 



5 — 

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46 15 
7 6 



NOTE — In both Tables I and II, where several visiting or building committees 
and the like have been found in a single city, they have in each case been com- 
bined into a single visiting or building committee. 



2. The Question of Legal Limitations 

It is not deemed necessary for the purpose of this study to enter 
into an analysis of the legal limitations affecting the powers and 
duties of city boards of education. While the statutes, on the 
one hand, do not for the most part prescribe the exact form in 
which these duties shall be exercised, they do not, on the other 
hand, prevent boards from exercising good judgment through 
the application of sound business principles in providing for the 
administration of the school system. 

Among the powers and duties commonly granted to city boards 
of education are these: to employ teachers and fix their salaries; 
to determine courses of study and adopt text-books, in so far as 
not regulated by state law ; to purchase fuel and supplies ; to 
divide the city into districts for purposes of distributing attend- 
ance; to submit bond issues to a vote of the electors; to recom- 



4 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

mend the tax levy; to have care and oversight of school prop- 
erty. The purchase and location of sites and the erection of 
buildings is frequently restricted by requiring a vote of approval 
by the electors, or in dependent city districts, by removing the 
power to purchase sites and erect buildings to other controlling 
bodies. 

This study is concerned with the way in which provision is 
made in the by-laws of boards for the performance of duties 
commonly devolving upon them. It is concerned with what 
boards do, whether it be the result of inactivity or over-activity, 
or whether it be the result of legal restriction, or a combination 
of these factors. It is true that boards are not altogether respon- 
sible for not doing what they may be, by statute, prevented from 
doing, but their responsibility in that case lies in utilizing the 
means at their command for securing necessary changes in the 
laws. In short, we are interested in finding how different forms 
of board practice contribute to or hinder efficient school admin- 
istration. 

Even a casual examination of state school laws is sufficient to 
convince the student of educational administration that the stat- 
utes do not prevent boards from knowing what they are doing; 
from bending every effort (except in San Francisco, which pro- 
vides for popular election of the superintendent) to secure as 
their chief executive officer the most capable man available ; from 
looking to their chief executive for recommendations on ques- 
tions of policy; from requiring of their executive officers ade- 
quate reports of the educational progress and business conditions 
of the school system; from an intelligent discussion of such 
reports ; from requiring their chief executive and his assistants 
to submit a detailed analysis of proposed expenditures and prob- 
able receipts, showing just what each unit of educational en- 
deavor will probably cost; from centering their own attention 
on large questions of policy and devoting a greater share of their 
time to large questions rather than to trivial matters. An exam- 
ination of school laws reveals further that boards are not deterred 
by legal provisions, from refusing to appoint teachers and other 
officers, so far as the appointive power rests with the board, 
except as they are nominated and recommended by the chief 
executive. It does not prevent them from refusing to squander 



The Board and its Duties 5 

their own time in listening to personal complaints and communi- 
cations unless it is found that the matter in question cannot be 
adjusted satisfactorily by those whom it employs to administer 
its system of education. 

While charters and general school laws do restrict boards in 
some cities by placing the money raising power, or the power 
to determine the location of sites and the erection of school 
buildings, in other hands, they may at least attempt to see that 
these other bodies are provided with adequate information regard- 
ing the needs of the school system. They may see that the city 
authorities or the legislature have opportunity to learn what is 
needed by the schools in the way of money, or types of educa- 
tional endeavor. They may enlighten the people of the com- 
munity as to the community's educational needs. They may make 
an honest effort to secure information as to whether or not the 
proposed expenditures are a fair and just burden upon the taxable 
wealth of the community. 

Some provisions may be noted, however, that require certain 
administrative functions to be delegated. The Pennsylvania 
school law ^ provides that in school districts of the first class 
"associate and assistant district superintendents may be appointed 
by the board of school directors, upon nomination of the super- 
intendent of schools. . . . They shall be under the supervision 
and direction of the superintendent of schools." It further pro- 
vides ^ that, "All plans for new school construction, additions or 
repairs shall be approved by the superintendent of buildings and 
shall be submitted to the superintendent of schools for criticism, 
before submission to the board of public education for adoption." 
The St. Louis charter provides * that, "All appointments, promo- 
tions and transfers of teachers, and introduction and changes of 
text-books and apparatus, shall be made only upon the recom- 
mendation of the superintendent and the approval of the board." 
In some instances the law provides certain statutory commit- 
tees. New York City's charter provides ^ that, "It shall be the 
duty of the board of education ... to appoint an executive 
committee of fifteen members of the board." It does not, how- 

2 Pennsylvania School Law, 1913, Art. XXII, Sec. 2224. 

3 Ibid., Sec. 2231. 

* St. Louis Charter, Sec. 7. 

' New York City Charter, Sec. 1063. 



6 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

ever, require that the board provide, as it does, fourteen addi- 
tional standing committees. 

In evaluating the practices of boards of education, error may 
be made in giving credit to boards for meritorious service; 
whereas, as a matter of fact, they may be doing only what the 
law compels them to do. Such error would tend to place the 
practices of boards in a more favorable light. Error may be 
made in the opposite direction, when certain criteria are applied, 
condemning boards for not doing what they may be prevented by 
law from doing. However this may be, our purpose, as stated, 
is to evaluate the practice of boards as it makes for or does not 
make for efficient school administration. 

3. The Duties of a Lay Board of Education 

a. Duties Undertaken in Practice 

(1) The Kind of Matters Considered in Meetings. That the 
reader may form some conception of the nature of matters which 
occupy the attention of boards of education, matters reported in 
the proceedings were tabulated. Table III includes all matters 
considered by boards, when not in the form of committee reports, 
for the first two meetings ^ whose minutes were received for the 
sixty cities in Table 11.^ Too much significance must not be 
attached to the frequency of different matters found because cer- 
tain types of business are more apt to be taken up in a given 
meeting than others. Bills of expenditure are commonly pre- 
sented each month, while such a matter as the budget may be 
confined to one or two meetings each year and a question of bond 
issue or the selection of a chief executive may not occur in sev- 
eral years. Evaluation of the matters found to be engaging 
the attention of boards is reserved for later sections of the study. 

(2) The Kind of Data Required by Boards. One criterion of 
the efficiency with which a board discharges its legislative func- 
tions is the precision or accuracy of the information it requires 
as a basis for passing upon proposed school policies. It is at the 

"In some instances only minutes of one meeting were received. 

' Except for reports of officers only matters occurring in three or more 
cities are given in the table. Matters merely referred to committees or 
officers are not included for the reason that such matters may be referred 
by the president without board consideration. 



The Board and its Duties 7 

TABLE IIP 
I. Reports of Executive Officers "3 

Superintendent's Report on: — ^ 

Proposed extensions or readjustments of the scope of educational 
activities : 1. 3, 4, 5. 10, 12, 13, 19, 20, 21, 29, 33, 34, 40, 42, 53, 56, 

57, 58, 60 20 

Progress of the schools : 

(a) Achievement of pupils : 34 1 

(b) Number of visits of supervision: 8, 10 2 

(c) Enrollment and attendance : 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 13, 21, 29, 32, 33, 

36, 37, 59, 61 15 

Matters pertaining to capital outlays, buildings, sites, improvements : 

1, 21, 61 3 

Selection of text-books or course of study : 2, 3, 19, 21, 31, 34, 36, 45, 

46, 54, 59 11 

Matters pertaining to maintenance expenditures : 1, 3, 16, 23, 30, 31, 

33, 41, 44, 45, 53, 54 12 

Appointment of teachers: 2, 3. 6, 20, 23, 27, 32, 34, 35, 38, 41, 45, 

51, 53, 56, 58, 60 17 

Assignment, transfer, resignation, leave of absence, or promotion of 

teachers : 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 20, 29, 31, 33, 34, 35, 53, 56, 58, 60 IS 

Questions of salaries or pensions : 2, 3, 20, 41, 45, 53, 58, 61 8 

Permits granted for use of building : 3, 57, 59 3 

Appointments of board of examiners : 48 1 

Appointments of administrative employees: 3, 61 2 

Educational meetings attended : 9 1 

Communications or complaints received: 1, 8, 34, 35, 53 5 

Changes in rules and regulations : 4, 34 2 

Length of school session, vacation dates : 10, 40 2 

Suspension of pupil : 29 1 

Granting diplomas : 33 1 

Receipts from school entertainments: 19 1 

Superintendent of Buildings or Superintendent of Supplies : — 

Progress of construction and amounts due on contracts : 2, 3, 14, 

20, 21 5 

Matters of maintenance expenditure or equipment: 2, 3, 14, 33, 34, 

57, 59 7 

Inspection of buildings, or materials, and amounts on hand: 2, 3, 57. 3 

Appointments and suspensions : 3, 56 2 

Permits granted or recommended : 2, 3, 56 3 

Recommending investigation of building department : 3 1 

Secretary, Business Manager ^ : — 

Business transacted or pending : 2, 3, 6, 13, 17, 21, 34, 58, 61 9 

* Numbers refer to cities of Table II. 

^ Exclusive of receipts, expenditures, conditions of funds, or bills to be 
paid. 



8 The City Superintendent and the' Board of Education 

Officers in charge of special departments : — 

Medical inspection : 6, 11, 12, 19, 21, 30, 33, 59 8 

Attendance : 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 13, 21, 33, 56, 59 11 

Attorney: — legal opinions, matters pending or adjusted: 3, 15, 57 3 

President's annual report : 8 1 

II 

Appointments, consider: (a) Teachers: 9, 10,io 25, 29, 30, 34, 54 7 

(b) Nurse : 32 1 

(c) Janitors : 14, 17, 27, 37, 43 5 

(d) Business employees : 12, 28j 38 3 

Adopt text-books or courses of study: 5, 12, 20, 45, 50 5 

Approve or reject expenditures: 1, 2, 3, 7, 9, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 23, 

24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, Z6, 37, 39, 40, 41, 43, 44, 46, 49, 51, 54, 59. 32 
Expenditures, authorize: 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20, 21, 22, 29, 30, 

33, 36, 41, 42, 45, 46, 47, 49, 54, 58 22 

Grant leaves of absence to teachers or others : 22, 24, 31, 32, 34, 39, 

43, 45 8 

Grant use of buildings or grounds : 12, 14, 16, 25, 26, 27, 30, 32, 

48, 56 10 

Building insurance : 29, 30, 43, 46 4 

School calendar: 9, 10, 18, 24, 35, 36, 39, 40, 44, 46, 47, 49, 56, 57, 

58, 59 16 

Resignations of teachers accepted : 18, 37, 47 3 

Authorize teachers, superintendent or board members to attend educa- 
tional gatherings : 29, 37, 44, 48 4 

Non-resident tuition : 12, 29, 30, 34, 36, 43 6 

Question of bids, supplies or equipment: 1, 2, 7, 12, 14, 15, 17, 20, 

21, 25, 28, 29, 31, ?>2>, 34, 35, 37, 41, 54, 55, 57, 58 22 

Questions pertaining to legal matters : 

Official bonds : 10, 13, 17, 46, 51 5 

Legal proceedings to quiet title : 47 1 

Heard report of receipts, expenditures and condition of funds : 2, 3, 
4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20, 21, 29, 31, 33, 34, Z6, 42, 

51, 57, 58, 59, 61 27 

Consider questions of capital outlays and means of financing: 

Bonds : 2, 13, 27, 36, 50, 51, 55, 58 8 

Sites and buildings : 10, 36, 43, 47, 48, 49, 60 7 

Consider matters of salary : 34, 42, 43, 48, 55 5 

Communications and complaints, written or oral: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 14, 
15, 17, 19, 20, 21 25, 26, 29, 31-7, 39-41, 43-5, 48, 51, 53-7, 59-61 38 

1*^ Voted on all applicants. 



The Board and its Duties 9 

Plans and specifications : 2, 6, 32, 33, 54, 55, 60 7 

Consider questions of budget, including sources of revenue : 1, 2, 12, 

17-8, 20-1, 24-5, 27, 35, 37, 43, 46-7, 49, 51, 57 18 

Questions of representing needs before city authorities or the legis- 
lature : 7, 9, 34, 53, 57, 59, 60 7 

Select (a) Chief executive: 38, 56 2 

(b) Other executive officers : 10-12, 15, 32, 36. 6 

same time a measure of the facts as to whether or not a board 
is holding its chief executive responsible for results and whether 
or not it is demanding that the chief executive, through such in- 
struments as the budget, shall initiate new policies. A board 
which votes a lump sum of $100,000 for teachers' salaries without 
knowing how many teachers at each grade and type of service and 
without knowing wherein and why there are differences from 
previous years, or which appropriates a lump sum of $10,000 for 
fuel and supplies without knowing whether this money is being 
spent where most needed, can scarcely be said to be properly serv- 
ing its community. We may select two topics for measuring 
practice of boards in this respect, the budget and the reports 
of its officers. The importance of adopting the annual budget as 
recommended by the chief executive and that of requiring and 
considering reports may be judged from the tentative scale of 
board duties. 

(a) The Form of Budget Adopted. It is not our purpose to 
enter into an exhaustive study of budget making. We may, 
however, examine the data of boards for certain matters of infor- 
mation which contribute most effectively to a board's ability to 
pass upon school policies. In any scientifically constructed bud- 
get data are necessary which will show whether school funds are 
being expended for those things which mean most for the edu- 
cation of the children, whether they are sufficient to purchase a 
high quality of instruction, and whether they represent a fair 
proportion of the community's ability to support good schools. 
The science of educational administration has established norms ^^ 
for the guidance of boards which make it unnecessary to guess in 
matters involving annually, as in some cities, millions of dollars. 

11 For data on this point see the studies of Strayer, Updegraff, and 
Elliott. 



10 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

Note was made wherever the budget had been considered in 
the meetings for which minutes were received. In addition 
information was secured in a number of cities visited. As a result 
data were secured from seventeen cities, though not complete in 
every case. Annual reports of these cities, where published, were 
also examined for whatever data essential in budget making were 
included. The cities thus selected are: 

Albany Lincoln Pierce, Nebr. 

Bridgeport Milwaukee Pittsburg 

Fremont, Nebr. Newark Richmond, Va. 

Grand Rapids Norwalk, Conn. Schenectady 

Jersey City Omaha West Point, Nebr. 

Kansas City, Mo. Owatonna, Minn. 

We cannot in every instance state positively that the board 
did or did not possess certain types of information which would 
enable it to act intelligently upon matters of financial policy. 
However, the rare instances in which any evidence is found either 
in the proceedings or reports seems significant. In only one 
instance, Schenectady,^^ is the board known to possess data show- 
ing the per cent of expenditures devoted to each major item of 
expense. Two others, Norwalk ^^ and Pittsburg,^* have such 
data for some of the items. 

In Schenectady the board, when considering its budget, had 
before it, through the initiative of its chief executive, data show- 
ing the percentage distribution of each major item, administra- 
tion, teaching, supervision, text-books, supplies, etc., for the pres- 
ent and preceding year together with that proposed for the com- 
ing year. It had data showing similar facts for thirty-three 
other cities of its class, from which could be determined the 
median, maximum, or minimum devoted to each item by these 
cities and by which the board could be guided in passing upon its 
own budget. In at least six other cities, each of which was vis- 
ited by the writer, the board does not have information showing 
percentage distributions. 

With reference to per pupil costs for these major items of 
expenditure there is evidence that the board is informed in 

12 Meeting attended by the writer, January 11, 1916. 

13 Report, 1915, p. 28. 

1* Report, 1914, pp. 247 and 265. 



The Board and its Duties 11 

Newark, Pittsburg, Schenectady, and Grand Rapids. It has 
information on some of these items in Norwalk and Lincoln. 
We have no evidence that this is true of the remaining eleven 
cities. We are certain that three of the small cities do not, 
Pierce, West Point, and Fremont, Nebr. Some of the cities do 
not even have the bare per pupil total for maintenance costs. 

Only three, Bridgeport, Norwalk, and Richmond, give evi- 
dence of possessing a knowledge of what per cent of the city's 
funds are devoted to schools and how this compares with other 
cities of the same class. When we examine the budgets of these 
cities we find few that have subdivided items sufficiently to show 
unit cost estimates of any sort. Yet such unit terms are neces- 
sary if the board is to know whether increased cost is to mean 
greater quantity, better quality or higher price of materials or 
service. With unit price specifications of supplies of all kinds, 
allowing somewhat for market fluctuations, and data showing 
quantities of each kind required, by buildings, it would be pos- 
sible to obviate the necessity of passing upon requisitions for 
supplies meeting after meeting as many boards do. If these 
are allowed in the budget with the maximum prices which the 
board will consent to pay fixed, it becomes unnecessary to re- 
peatedly pass upon requisitions for supplies, authorize bids, and 
consider such bids in board meeting. Executive officers can 
be entrusted with performing such service if the board fixes its 
maxima, permits executive officers to secure the best prices pos- 
sible on given specifications and then requires them to report on 
what has been done. There is no evident reason why this can- 
not be done in the field of education as it is in the field of busi- 
ness. Purchases would then be controlled through the budget 
and the board would be freed from petty administrative details 
to devote its time to large matters of policy. 

When we examine the budget or the annual report, we find no 
distribution table of salaries in such cities as Pittsburg, Milwau- 
kee, Grand Rapids, Jersey City, Newark, or Omaha, as we do in 
the case of Albany. ^^ The budget for Albany specifies the num- 
ber of teachers at each given salary. With such data before him, 
a board member may know whether he is voting for a few high 
salaried teachers and a large number of low ones or for a large 

1" Proceedings, November 1, 1915. 



12 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

number which group closely around the central tendency and only 
a few at either extreme. 

Varying conceptions of budget making are found. In some 
cities the dignified term of "budget" is inappropriate. A half 
dozen gross items or less of expenditure and no greater number 
of revenue items are considered sufficient to complete the "budget." 
This occurs, if the recorded minutes are accurate, in Pittsburg,^^ 
Bridgeport, Conn.," Fremont,^^ Pierce,^'' and West Point, Nebr.^° 
Many of the so-called "budgets," as superintendents in cities vis- 
ited admit, are mere accumulations. Previous years' expendi- 
tures with whatever additions seem necessary constitute the essen- 
tials of a new "budget." There is little, if any, attempt to devise 
the budget along the line of such administrative principles as 
have been indicated. The maintenance budget of Newark^^ con- 
tains twelve lump items of expenditure exclusive of the salary 
item which is subdivided into ten types. Jersey City ^^ classifies 
the expenditures of its maintenance budget under seventeen 
headings, but subdivides "salaries" into seven parts and voca- 
tional schools into four. There is no specification of the precise 
way in which expenditures shall be made in such budgets. The 
building budget of Newark ^^ is distinctly different in form from 
this. Each parcel of land with its size and the proposed price 
is specified. A definite statement is made of the number of 
rooms to be provided in each building addition with the cost of 
each. The budget for Albany -* covers thirteen printed pages. 
While not a model in all respects it makes the explanation of 
increases or decreases a distinctive feature. This is in marked 
contrast to what is found in connection with the budget of many 
of the cities. 

What is the nature of the questions upon which precise data 
of the kind indicated above enable a board member to pass 
judgment? At Schenectady data on per cubic foot costs for 
heating showed that of two buildings of the same size, age and 
type of construction, one was costing twice that of the other for 
fuel. Obviously the problem was either one of repairs or im- 

16 Minutes, Dec. 9, 1913. 21 Minutes, May 4, 1915. 

" Minutes, Dec. 9, 1915. 22 Minutes, June 2, 1915. 

18 Minutes, July 7, 1915. 23 Minutes, June 18, 1915. 

1^ Personal observation. 24 Proceedings, Nov. 1, 1915. 
20 Minutes, June 7, 1915. 



The Board and its Duties 13 

provement in janitor service and not of fuel. While this is but a 
single instance of a lone building it indicates the possibility of 
losses where accurate and detailed data are not compiled on items 
which affect the budget. In the same city, the members of the 
board were enabled to see that an increased cost of $7.50 per 
pupil within the past three years was due to an increase in the 
amount expended for janitor service. At Lincoln per pupil 
cost figures for the work of each special department gave the 
board data with which it could weigh costs with probable achieve- 
ments and decide whether or not it should encourage either of 
these departments with more liberal appropriations. In Nor- 
walk 2^ the data accompanying the budget showed that 36.3 per 
cent of the increased expenditures for teachers' salaries was due 
to additions to the teaching force, that the average per pupil cost 
was the lowest of five cities of its own state, and that it was more 
than eight dollars less than that of a neighboring state. The data 
showed further that the per cent of city revenue spent for 
schools was lower than that of other cities with which it may be 
compared, and that it was spending 11 per cent less than the 
average of all cities of its class. Such data should indicate to a 
board that its problem is very probably that of convincing the 
board of estimate or other controlling body of the need of more 
liberal appropriations for schools. 

(b) The Reports of the Chief Executive. To determine if 
possible the kind of reports required or received by boards of 
education from their chief executive, minutes of proceedings 
and annual reports from selected cities were analyzed. A first 
group of ten cities was selected at random from those cities of 
Table II whose published proceedings were received. To secure 
a random selection cities were selected in order from the proceed- 
ings, as found on the library shelves of Teachers College at the 
time, until a sufficient number meeting the required conditions 
were secured. Only those were chosen for which the proceed- 
ings covered at least an entire month and which included the 
report of the superintendent in one or more meetings. Those 
which merely indicated that the superintendent had made a report 
were excluded. In the matter of annual reports it was soon dis- 
covered that some of these cities publish none. These may be 
25 See Annual Report, 1915. 



14 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 



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The Board and its Duties 15 

noted from the blank columns of Table IV. As a measure of 
the superintendent's report, selected objective items were chosen 
and their presence or absence noted. The particular items were 
chosen with reference to their serviceability as indices of desir- 
able policies. Some items may duplicate others somewhat. This 
is due to a desire to give due credit where statistics are pre- 
sented in somewhat less desirable form but nevertheless valuable 
in indicating desirable policies. The items are mainly of a per 
cent or per unit nature. Many formal tables were found of 
which no account is taken for the reason that such tables require 
skill and no small amount of time for effective interpretation. 
They may possess a mine of information, but it is often undis- 
covered. 

Table IV gives in columns A to J inclusive the results from 
the published annual reports of the first group of ten cities. 
City I, it may be noted, is the only one which gives the per cent 
of city revenue spent on schools. In the report of this city com- 
parisons with six other cities of its class are made by departments 
and in per capita terms. This city is the only one of the first 
group which considers in its report the amount of money raised 
by taxation, in relation to the taxable wealth, and the relation 
which this amount raised bears to the tax rate and taxable prop- 
erty of other cities of its class. If the annual reports of a city's 
school system do not contain such comparative and analytical 
data on the financial ability of the city to support good schools, 
how does the public know definitely whether the city is making 
the best effort it can for the education of its children? The 
public may possibly receive information on this point from other 
sources, but that is trusting to chance what is an evident duty 
of the board of education. 

The examination of the minutes of a total of thirty-six regular 
and special meetings of boards in these ten cities revealed the fol- 
lowing items that were comparable to those of the table: 

Enrollment compared with previous years Cities A, B, C, D, G, I 

Per cent of enrollment in average attendance A, B, G 

Distribution of classes by size D 

Amount of retardation F 

It may be maintained with some fairness that oral reports are 
not recorded. Observation of boards in session, however, does 



16 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

not warrant any great stress on this point. At best an oral 
report gives neither the board nor the chief executive a record 
of the fact that adequate data have been required on the one 
hand or presented on the other. It may or may not satisfy the 
public that the board is legislating or that its executives are pro- 
posing legislation based upon the most urgent needs of the chil- 
dren. 

A further objection may be raised that cities do not report 
the same phases of activity each year. As far as this group of 
cities represents the tendency in reporting the objection is not 
valid. To verify this a total of twenty-five additional reports 
from preceding years were examined, as follows : Cities A, D, F, 
I, three each ; B, E, G, four each ; H, one. None were available 
for C and J. City I again alone presents the per cent of city 
revenue spent for schools and in each case compares its own 
efforts with that of other cities of its class. Cities A, F, G, and H 
give nothing to indicate the financial ability of the city to sup- 
port schools. City D gives the value of the taxable property and 
the tax rate for schools in two different years. City E gives sim- 
ilar data and in addition gives the per cent that the school tax 
rate is of the total city tax rate. This occurs in three of the 
four reports. Nothing more is to be found in any of these re- 
ports that would indicate the ability of these cities to support 
their schools. Nor do we find data for any of the cities of this 
group differing materially from that indicated in the table for 
each city. In other words, these cities tend to publish data on 
the same items each year. 

The following graphic charts were found in the first reports 
examined for each of these cities : cities A and D, two each on 
medical inspection showing prevalence of physical defects or dis- 
eases ; E, one on census and enrollment showing growth by years ; 
I, two on achievement of pupils; B, F, G, H, none; C and K 
reports not published. 

A second group of fifteen cities was selected. These cities 
were chosen by selecting in order from the cities of Table II, 
omitting those already included in the first group of ten, until 
the required number were secured. The results found in the 
reports of these cities on items of the table are given in columns 
K to Y. Graphic charts were found in these cities as follows : 



The Board and its Duties 17 

city L, six on achievement of pupils in standard tests ; M, one 
on progress of pupils by grades ; P, two for the repair depart- 
ment, one showing how "every dollar was spent" and the other 
the relative cost of each trade divided into labor and materials ; 
S, eight, one each on (1) achievement of pupils, (2) persistence 
of attendance by grades, (3) growth of average number of days 
attendance, (4) comparison of expenditures by years for each 
major item in per cent, (5) per cent of receipts from each 
source, (6) per cent of expenditures for each of three groups of 
items, (7) growth of receipts from each source, (8) growth in 
expenditures for each of three groups of items; X, thirteen, (1) 
growth of city's tax budget, (2) growth of school tax appropria- 
tion, (3) growth in per cent of the budget devoted to educational 
administration and instruction, (4) progress by grades, (5) nor- 
mal over and under age by grades, (6) over age by grades and 
years, (7) normal age by grades and years, (8) under age by 
grades and years, (9) and (10) proportion of pupils promoted, 
(11) comparative enrollment, (12) growth of enrollment, (13) 
per cent of failures by causes; cities K, O, R, U, V, Y, none; 
cities N, Q, T, W, no published reports. 

From the data presented with respect to the budget and the 
reports of the superintendent as found in the annual reports 
and in the minutes, it is evident that many boards are not requir- 
ing the accurate, detailed statistical data necessary to pass intel- 
ligently upon school policies. Neither are they requiring the 
form of data necessary to know whether or not the chief execu- 
tive and his assistants are securing the desired results. From 
such data as we have found, it is clear that not many boards are 
holding executive officers responsible for results. They have yet 
to learn that a board can secure results by (1) delegating pro- 
fessional and administrative functions to the chief executive, (2) 
requiring that he take the initiative in such matters as the budget 
and present to it such data that the board may know the kind of 
results he proposes to secure and has secured in the past, and (3) 
reserving for itself the legislative functions to be exercised on 
the basis of adequate objective data. 

(3) The Board's Regard for Economy of Its Own Time. We 
may measure the efficiency of the practices of a board of edu- 
cation to some extent by the distribution made of the time at its 



18 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

disposal. Even though a board is accustomed to passing hur- 
riedly over routine matters as happens in New York City, the 
care and consideration which matters receive will vary, roughly 
speaking, inversely with the quantity of matters which the board 
attempts to consider. One problem of a board of education, 
which is evident from conditions found in board meetings, is to 
properly economize its own time so that important measures of 
policy may receive adequate consideration without unnecessary 
sacrifice of private business on the part of members. 

(a) Waste of Time upon Unimportant Matters. By far the 
most time-consuming element found in meetings is that of giving 
ear to complaints and communications. Boards were found giv- 
ing attention to persons ranging from those who had purely 
private interests to those who took issue with the board's policy 
in such matters as its building program. As a result of squan- 
dering time upon trivial matters or upon matters that ought to 
be disposed of through other channels, important business must 
be passed over hurriedly. The reports of executive officers are 
frequently given all too little attention. Committee reports are 
accepted and their recommendations adopted without adequate 
consideration by the board itself. In nine of the fifteen cities 
visited, the board gave audience to individuals, groups, or repre- 
sentatives of organizations. None of these nine are cities having 
less than 25,000 population. 

We may illustrate the type of matters considered from the first 
of these nine cases. In this city the board spent practically the 
entire open session from 8 to 9:45 p.m. hearing complaints 
brought before it without previous consideration by executive 
officers. The real work of this board is performed in execu- 
tive session between 6:30 and 8 p.m. Approximately thirty 
persons appeared with interests to defend. One parent desired 
his child to be transferred. A guardian appeared with a non- 
resident high school pupil for whom she sought free tuition. A 
small group desired a new school site. Another small group 
wanted a smoke and blasting nuisance in the vicinity of a school 
abated. A principal appeared before the board with a request 
for supplies and equipment. A motion picture representative 
asked the privilege of photographing some school children. An- 



The Board and its Duties 19 

other group desired the consolidation of an outlying district and 
the vacation of the present building. 

In the second of these nine cities, approximately one hour of a 
session lasting less than two hours was given over to discussion 
of the request of representatives of an organization who appeared 
asking permission to take a religious census of the school chil- 
dren. At the close of the hour it was discovered that the organ- 
ization had no definite plan of procedure. The board failed to 
make final disposition of the matter, voting to file the communi- 
cation for further consideration. 

In the third city, one-half hour of the open session of approxi- 
mately two and a half hours was devoted to a discussion of the 
request of representatives of a religious organization that danc- 
ing be prohibited in the new high school building. 

In the fourth, committee meetings were in session until 9:10 
P.M. The next twenty minutes were devoted to roll call, com- 
munications, and the reading of brief formal reports of the super- 
visor of buildings and the attendance officer. At 10 p.m. the 
board had finished its labors of the open session, having heard 
and accepted the reports of four committees. 

In the fifth the board met at 8:10 p.m. At the end of twenty 
minutes the minutes had been read and approved and the board 
had heard a representative of a special type of heating fixtures. 
An additional hour and fifteen minutes was spent in discussing 
whether the board or the city council had the power to fill a 
vacancy on the board of education. The question was unusual, 
it may be true, but the board adjourned at 11:35 p.m., having 
found it necessary to postpone any discussion of what was per- 
haps the most complete and illuminating of any superintendent's 
report heard in all the cities visited. 

In the sixth, after listening for one hour and thirty minutes to a 
debate between two groups of citizens on a purely professional 
matter — a new method of school room organization and teach- 
ing — proposed by one of these groups, it was discovered that its 
advocates, who pretended to represent a certain parent-teacher 
organization, represented but a small minority of the organiza- 
tion. The matter was tabled. At 10:10 p.m. the board went 
to work at the real business before it, disposing of it in less than 



20 The City Superintendent' and the Board of Education 

one hour. A matter involving ten thousand dollars was passed 
upon with only momentary consideration. 

In the seventh, the board spent one hour in executive session 
with the announced intention of considering bids on fuel. Forty 
minutes more were devoted to hearing members of a delegation 
urging that the board adopt a more far-sighted plan in the pur- 
chase of sites and the erection of buildings. These men were 
urging a matter important for the board to consider, but never- 
theless a matter that could have been introduced through the 
channel of the board's executive officers. As it was, the board 
listened to speakers who had private interests in the way of pos- 
sible increased property values as well as to those who urged the 
needs of the children or civic pride. The superintendent's report 
was deferred because of the late hour. 

In the eighth, the same city in which the superintendent made 
the statement, referred to elsewhere, that "there is absolutely 
too much business to be done without committee action," the 
board spent one-half hour out of three hours of an evening ses- 
sion discussing building needs with a delegation desiring a new 
building. The chairman of the committee on buildings reviewed 
the board's building program, showing that the board had adopt- 
ed an extensive program in which the delegation acquiesced Avhen 
the real needs and plans were learned. The difficulty was that 
the board had not taken the public into its confidence to repre- 
sent to it school building needs. Through an adequate system of 
reporting the questions asked by these citizens might have been 
answered with less effort. The new policy proposed by the 
superintendent in his report at this meeting, advocating the em- 
ployment of sufficient nurses to inaugurate a "follow-up" policy 
of medical inspection, was referred to a committee without dis- 
cussion. However, the board devoted ten minutes to the ques- 
tion of whether it should permit the sale of "peanuts, candies 
and tickets." 

In the ninth, a city which looks to its executive officers to carry 
on the actual work of administration, and which has since voted 
to abolish all committees, routine matters were disposed of VN^ith 
dispatch to make way for the main item on the calendar, the 
consideration of its building program, to which thirty-five min- 
utes were devoted. It did not, however, escape giving twelve 



The Board and its Duties 21 

minutes to satisfying a misinformed delegation of citizens that 
the building needs of their particular locality were already receiv- 
ing due consideration. 

Such distribution of the board's time as was made in eight of 
these nine cities, or as was found in New York, a tenth, calls for 
improvement. In New York the board spent slightly more than 
two hours of its session discussing the advisability of asking the 
board of estimate for additional funds. This was an impor- 
tant matter involving some millions of dollars. Discussion by 
members, however, revealed the fact that the board was consider- 
ing a question on which it lacked accurate data as to the amount 
required. One member asked to be enlightened as to how the 
price proposed to be paid for a certain site, included in the 
appropriation asked for, had been determined. The informa- 
tion was not forthcoming. Another member sought to discover 
the total of the proposed expenditures. Some little time was 
consumed before it could be answered. Others favored blanket 
requests for money without specification as to its use. It was 
evident that this large body was spending its time seeking infor- 
mation from sources where it was not to be had, with the result 
that it had but scant time to devote to other matters. 

The devotion of the board's time to matters of importance, 
which occurred in Jersey City and Schenectady and in the ninth 
of the cities referred to above, was a decided improvement over 
that in the first eight and in New York. In Jersey City the 
matter receiving the larger portion of the board's attention was 
a discussion of the building program. No verbal complaints or 
communications were heard. At Schenectady there were no 
communications or complaints seeking the attention of the board. 
This board has nominal committees, but no committee action 
was recorded in the proceedings for six months previous and no 
matters were referred to committees for consideration at this 
meeting. A single topic, the budget, prepared by the chief exec- 
utive, occupied approximately three-quarters of the meeting. 
The members of the board had before them the data referred to 
elsewhere in this chapter. The president of the board, when 
asked to account for such conditions, explained that it was the 
policy of the board to leave administrative details, communica- 
tions or complaints to the superintendent. 



22 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

Of the twelve cities thus far considered, all having a population 
of 25,CXX3 or more, nine may be said to have been spending from 
one-half to more than two hours of time in board meeting either 
on trivial matters or on matters on which the board did not have 
the necessary information to pass intelligently. Of the three 
remaining cities visited, one has a population of 9000 and the 
other two less than 3000. A waste of time in such small cities 
with little business to transact, if it did occur, would be of less 
consequence. While in some cities apologies were made on the 
ground that it was unusual to devote so much time to com- 
plaints, the fact that it occurred in three-quarters of the cities 
of 25,000 or more population seems to be evidence that no small 
number of boards do spend a part of their time in such fashion. 

(b) Volume of Business Passed Upon in Meetings. The 
amount of business which some boards attempt to pass upon 
may be judged from the minutes of Los Angeles. The board 
at its meeting of January 24, 1916, professed to have passed upon 
the following: 

Reports of Purchasing Committee 20 items 

Law and Rules 13 

Teachers and Schools 29 

Finance IS 

Building 62 

Communications 4 

Total 143 

In addition the board passed upon reports from four execu- 
tive officers, superintendent, supervisor of buildings, supervisor 
of supplies, and secretary. 

Committee items are by no means always simple items. Five 
items in the report of the teachers and schools committee, deal- 
ing with elementary schools, involve passing upon resignations, 
leaves of absence, appointments, assignments and transfers of 
thirty-two teachers. Item 24 of the building committee report 
for elementary schools includes a delay for committee investiga- 
tion on a matter of moving "bungalows" from three sites to 
twelve other sites. The board in this city meets in regular ses- 
sion five times each month. It meets at 1 p.m. on the first and 
third Thursdays and at 7:30 p.m. on the second, third, and fourth 



The Board and its Duties 23 

Tuesdays as an elementary school board. Under the California 
law it meets separately as a high school board. These meetings 
are held immediately following. Committees meet immediately 
following the regular board meetings. ^^ But this is not all of the 
time members of this board attempt to contribute to the welfare 
of the schools even though it be a heavy tax upon their own pri- 
vate business. Committees have taken some time to pass judg- 
ment on matters they present. Some committees expect to spend 
more time still by making personal investigations in the field. 
The building committee recommends : 

"that action by this committee on the following recommendations of the 
Superintendent be deferred until the Teachers and Schools Committee 
investigates same and makes recommendation: — 

(a) That the basement of the San Pedro Street School be equipped 
for sloyd and the sloyd room in that school be equipped for 
cooking. 

(b) That the following released bungalows be moved to the school 
sites as indicated below : 

From Ann Street School site: — 

1 to Palo Verde School site. 

3 to Bridge Street School site. 

2 to 62nd Avenue School site. 
1 to 21st Avenue School site. 

1 to Breed Avenue School site. 
1 to Utah Street School site. 
1 to Malabar Street School site. 
From Seventh Avenue School site : — 
1 to 17th Street School site. 

1 to Magnolia Avenue School site. 
From Virgil Avenue School site: — 

3 to Logan Street School site. 

2 to Echo Park Avenue School site. 
1 to Cambria Street School site." 

"We recommend that action on the following matters be deferred one 
week to enable the Committee to personally investigate same: 

(a) Recommendation of the Superintendent relative to additional 
school facilities at Torrance. 

(b) Repairing of the cottage on the Staunton Avenue School site at 
an approximate cost of $217.50. 

(c) Request from . . . Ass't. Superintendent of Schools that addi- 
tional land be purchased for use of the Trinity Street School." " 

ae Report, 1914. , 

3^ Italics used here and elsewhere in the study are the author s. 



24 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

Los Angeles is by no means the only city in which board mem- 
bers spend considerable time in the field supervising administra- 
tive matters. This is true especially for members of the building 
committee in a number of the cities visited. Some board mem- 
bers were observed to be doing so at no small sacrifice on their 
part. Their public spirit and interest in seeing that buildings 
are well built is to be commended, but it would probably be wise 
economy in many instances to engage experts of known ability 
in whom the board can place confidence that buildings will be 
constructed in accord with the plans and specifications. With 
the time spent in examining buildings, added to that devoted to 
meetings, it is certain that some boards give liberally of their 
time to school affairs. With a large amount of business to be 
transacted and with field work in addition it is not surprising 
that some boards resolve themselves into a number of separate 
boards in the form of committees. 

We may have presented an extreme case in Los Angeles. 
One needs but to examine the minutes or calendars of such cities 
as Chicago, New York, Milwaukee, or Kansas City to see the 
mass of material that the board in these cities attempts to cover. 
Is it surprising that pleas are made for committees on the ground 
that the board itself cannot attend to all of the business coming 
before it? Such a plea, however, is an admission that the board 
itself does not expect to pass intelligently on many matters. 
When we add to the facts (1) that boards attempt to pass upon 
too much business to give important matters thorough considera- 
tion, and (2) that they accept committee judgments for their 
own; the further facts, (3) that they fail in many instances to 
require adequate data, and (4) that they fail to make an eco- 
nomical distribution of the time at their disposal, the need of 
reform in board practices is indicated. 

Our constructive suggestion toward the solution of the diffi- 
culties confronting lay boards of education is that they adopt a 
businesslike policy toward city school administration. This sug- 
gestion is based upon administrative principles employed in the 
field of business. It finds a further basis in the judgments of 
several hundred competent judges as to what are the proper 
duties of a board of education. It is quite probable that that 
board will first reach a solution of these difficulties which (1) 



The Board and its Duties 25 

recognizes that educational leadership is a professional under- 
taking; (2) chooses capable leaders; (3) places upon them the 
responsibility for administrative success and requires them to 
dispose of all save matters of vital importance; (4) reserves its 
own time to a consideration of matters of policy as presented in 
the reports and recommendations of its chief executive and his 
assistants, and (5) acts only on the basis of adequate statistical 
data presented by its executives showing the achievements of the 
past and those proposed for the future. 

b. The Duties a Lay Board of Education Should Perform 

( 1 ) A List of Board Duties. The writer, with the assistance 
of several hundred others, has endeavored to bring together in 
constructive form the duties which most of all should command 
the attention of a board of education. The list of duties on 
the page following is the result of a process of selection. Each 
member of a class of eighty graduate students in educational 
administration was asked to list the three duties of a board of 
education which he or she considered most important. From 
the returns received, and from the recommendations of various 
school surveys, which possibly represent the best single judgments, 
a preliminary list was prepared. After discussion of this list by 
students of educational administration had brought out its weak- 
nesses as well as its strong points, members of the seminar in 
educational administration at Teachers College were each asked 
to list the ten most important duties of a board of education. 
From the lists submitted by these individuals and the prelim- 
inary list, a second list was prepared. Along with the duties 
considered important were placed a few which were considered 
of minor importance or which the board possibly should not per- 
form. These unimportant duties were added in order to facili- 
tate a final approximation to a scale at one extreme of which 
should be placed those duties considered by several hundred com- 
petent judges as of first importance and at the other end those 
considered least worthy of a board's attention. After some addi- 
tional criticisms of the wording of the several duties, the list was 
prepared with the accompanying directions. The list was sub- 
mitted to 531 judges. The judges, while made up mostly of 
students of educational administration, superintendents, and prin- 



26 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

cipals, included school board members and experienced business 
men. The judges were instructed to rank the duties in what each 
considered the order of importance. Realizing the impossibility 
of drawing sharp distinctions between all of the nineteen duties, 
the suggestion was given that duties near either extreme be ranked 
first. Instructions were also given to mark with an X those 
which boards should not perform. 

Rank the following duties performed by city boards of education in 
order of their importance. 

Note : Read the entire list before you begin. Give rank No. 1 to the 
one you consider most important and No. 19 to the least important. You 
may find it easier to rank those that fall near the upper or lower end 
before attempting to locate those that will fall near the middle. Mark 
also with an X those you think Boards should not perform, e.g., X-19. 
Rank 

A. Act as a court of final appeal for teachers, supervisors and patrons 
in cases which the superintendent has not been able to dispose of, or 
which may be appealed from his decision. 

B. Adopt, upon consultation with the chief executive, a set of by-laws 
or rules for the government of the school system, i.e., designate 
authority of executive and administrative officers, and duties to be 
performed by the board or its committees. 

C. Advise with the chief executive, aflfording a group judgment, on his 
recommendations for extensions or readjustments of the scope of 
educational activities. 

D. Appoint — upon nomination and recommendation of the chief execu- 
tive — teachers, principals, and supervisors. 

E. Approve text-books selected by the chief executive and approve 
courses of study recommended by him. 

F. Approve the list of bills for expenditure previously authorized and 
approved by executive officers. 

G. Consider recommendations of executive officers on legal tnatters, 
decide steps to be taken, e.g., suits to quiet title, condemnation. 

H. Require and consider report of the business transacted or pending 
and of the financial status of the system. 

I. Debate and pass upon recommendations of chief executive for addi- 
tional capital outlays — buildings, sites, improvements, and deter- 
mine the means of financing such outlays, e.g., bonds, loans. 

J. Determine, after consultation and discussion with the chief execu- 
tive, the schedule of salaries. 

K. Require and discuss report of the chief executive concerning 



The Board and its Duties 27 

progress of the schools — in terms of achievements of pupils, teach- 
ers, supervisors. 

L. Hear communications, written or oral, from citizens or organiza- 
tions on matters of administration or policy. 

M. Pass upon architect's plans, approved by the chief executive and 
his assistants, for buildings that have been authorized. 

N. Pass upon the annual budget for maintenance prepared by the chief 
executive and his assistants ("budget" including sources and 
amount of revenue available as well as expenditures). 

O. Represent needs of the schools before city authorities or the legis- 
lature. 

P. Represent needs of the schools before the public, e.g., press, plat- 
form. 

Q. Select the chief executive officer and support him in the discharge of 
his duties. 

R. Serve as laymen ready (even after retiring from the board) to 
champion school needs and to further public support of the schools, 
e.g., as others champion good streets, parks. 

S. Visit the schools, observe or investigate the efficiency of instruc- 
tion. 

Indicate any important duties that you think have been omitted from 
the list 

(2) The Result of a Series of Judgments. Table V gives the 
distribution of ranks assigned to each of the nineteen duties by 
the 531 judges ^^ from whom complete rankings were received. 
The most striking feature of the table is, that to select the chief 
executive and support him in the discharge of his duties is un- 
questionably regarded by these judges as the most important sin- 
gle duty which a board of education has to perform. Approxi- 
mately 70 per cent of all the judges rank it number one. The 
duties which are placed next in importance are those which have 
to do with passing upon the annual budget, the recommendations 
of the chief executive for additional capital outlays, advising 

38 The difference in the totals for each of the nineteen ranks is due to 
the fact that some of the judges regarded certain of the duties as of equal 
importance. Half ranks resulting from such failure to distribute have 
been included with the next higher rank. A more accurate method would 
have been to distribute these half ranks equally among the next higher and 
next lower ranks. However, when this was done it was found that in no 
case was the relative position of the any of the nineteen duties changed, 
nor was the change in any case as much as .05 from the value given in 
Table VI. 



28 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

with him on questions of extending or readjusting the scope of 
educational activities, and appointing teachers, principals and 
supervisors when nominated by the chief executive. The duties 
which are regarded as least worthy of a board's attention are, in 
order, those which involve visiting the schools and attempting 
to pass upon the quality of instruction, hearing communications, 
and acting as a court of appeal on complaints from teachers, 
supervisors and patrons. These same three are most frequently 
regarded as duties which a board of education should not per- 
form. The relative importance of each duty as determined by 
the 75 percentile method ^^ is shown in Table VL The same 
facts are represented graphically upon a linear scale in Fig. I, 
which may be regarded as representing a tentative scale of the 
nineteen duties. 

TABLE V 



Distribution of Ranks Assigned Each Duty 





Rank 






































Duty 
A 


1 


2 


3 


4 


5 


6 


7 


8 


9 


10 


11 


12 


13 


14 


15 


16 


17 


18 


19 


Total 


3 


13 


12 


9 


13 


13 


21 


20 


27 


23 


29 


34 


31 


23 


43 


45 


64 


66 


42 


531 


B 


28 


73 


38 


35 


25 


27 


22 


27 


19 


26 


23 


28 


23 


23 


24 


30 


16 


34 


10 


531 


C 


28 


63 


80 


53 


54 


32 


42 


29 


34 


16 


22 


20 


16 


12 


8 


10 


4 


4 


4 


531 


D 


14 


97 


■77 


64 


42 


32 


21 


25 


15 


24 


26 


19 


14 


17 


15 


13 


4 


8 


4 


531 


E 


1 


S 


25 


28 


28 


31 


20 


29 


35 


29 


31 


23 


36 


31 


40 


33 


42 


40 


24 


531 


F 





5 


15 


16 


31 


20 


34 


23 


44 


50 


35 


33 


45 


40 


26 


44 


39 


26 


5 


531 


G 





1 


3 


10 


17 


19 


16 


30 


30 


34 


47 


50 


56 


58 


49 


38 


26 


28 


9 


531 


H 


7 


11 


22 


26 


31 


36 


31 


45 


39 


41 


47 


50 


34 


34 


29 


19 


17 


12 





531 


I 


21 


38 


63 


55 


70 


50 


46 


45 


37 


22 


19 


19 


15 


14 


7 


4 


2 


3 


1 


531 


J 


2 


9 


25 


41 


31 


57 


49 


41 


61 


40 


42 


34 


34 


17 


12 


12 


13 


5 


6 


531 


K 


8 


21 


29 


45 


47 


38 


40 


32 


25 


34 


36 


22 


29 


25 


29 


24 


24 


19 


4 


531 


L 





2 


5 


4 


6 


10 


13 


8 


14 


17 


18 


34 


38 


39 


56 


56 


72 


91 


48 


531 


M 


2 


5 


11 


25 


13 


26 


25 


37 


46 


40 


36 


44 


49 


43 


37 


28 


23 


29 


12 


531 


N 


20 


90 


51 


56 


65 


39 


27 


32 


34 


22 


14 


19 


22 


9 


5 


6 


5 


3 


2 


531 


O 


7 


24 


25 


23 


21 


29 


23 


36 


35 


27 


34 


31 


37 


41 


49 


41 


29 


14 


5 


531 


P 


7 


10 


19 


19 


19 


29 


37 


23 


25 


35 


31 


28 


24 


40 


39 


49 


46 


35 


16 


531 




376 


39 


29 


17 


14 


7 


11 


9 


4 


3 


1 


4 


2 


3 


6 


3 


2 





1 


531 


]^ 


6 


22 


13 


11 


18 


16 


25 


26 


18 


24 


22 


33 


22 


38 


42 


43 


61 


58 


33 


531 


s 


1 


4 


5 


7 


7 


4 


6 


11 


7 


10 


11 


5 


16 


8 


15 


30 


48 


85 


251 


531 




531 


532 


547 


544 


552 


515 


519 


528 


549 


517 


524 


530 


543 


515 


531 


528 


547 


560 


477 


10089 



39 The 75 percentile is that point above which 75 per cent of the judges 
would place a given duty and below which the remaining 25 per cent would 
place the same duty, e.g., 75 per cent of the judges would place duty Q at 
2.57 or higher and 25 per cent would assign it a lower rank. 



The Board and its Duties 



29 



> 



o 



Ph 



m 



^ 



a 



CLh 



r^ 


H 


!? 




Q 


u 


PQ 


tn 


w 


< 


< 


P-I 


H 


>< 


lO 




H 


r^ 




t3 






P 






w 






o 






< 






w 





ffi 



o 



!zj 




WW 

CM 


O 


fe 


vo 


H 




t— 1 


a 






O 






h 




ON 


g 




r-H 




W 


\d 



« 



u 



pq 






. o\ 



p- oo 



- !£2 

- ^ 
£2 

_ O 

- o\ 

- oo 

>0 
*o 

'^ 

- ro 

- rsi 

- O 



w 

o 

w 
o 
z 
<: 

H 

o 



30 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

The different duties will be seen to fall within more or less 
distinct groups. Duties N, I, C, D, and J form a group which 
are next in importance to the selection of the chief executive. 
A middle group includes H, K, B, M, O, F, G, E, and P, while 
the duties which stand out as being of least importance are R, A, 
L, and S. Nine are regarded as of more importance than M and 
nine as of less importance. We may, then, as a result of the 531 
judgments, rearrange the list of duties performed by a board of 
education in the order of importance as follows : 

1. Select the chief executive officer and support him in the discharge of 
his duties. 

2. Pass upon the annual budget for maintenance prepared by the chief 
executive and his assistants ("budget including sources and amount 
of revenue available as well as expenditures"). 

3. Debate and pass upon recommendations of chief executive for addi- 
tional capital outlays — ^buildings, sites, improvements, and determine 
the means of financing such outlays, e.g., bonds, loans. 

4. Advise with the chief executive, affording a group judgment, on his 
recommendations for extensions or readjustments of the scope of 
educational activities. 

5. Appoint — upon nomination and recommendation of the chief execu- 
tive — teachers, principals, and supervisors. 

6. Determine, after consultation and discussion with the chief execu- 
tive, the schedule of salaries. 

7. Require and consider report of the business transacted or pending 
and of the financial status of the system. 

8. Require and discuss report of the chief executive concerning progress 
of the schools — in terms of achievements of pupils, teachers, super- 
visors. 

9. Adopt, upon consultation with the chief executive, a set of by-laws 
or rules for the government of the school system, i.e., designate 
authority of executive and administrative officers, and duties to be 
performed by the board or its committees. 

10. Pass upon architect's plans, approved by the chief executive and his 
assistants, for buildings that have been authorized. 

11. Represent needs of the schools before city authorities or the legis- 
lature. 

12. Approve the list of bills for expenditure previously authorized and 
approved by executive officers. 

13. Consider recommendations of executive officers on legal matters, 
decide steps to be taken, e.g., suits to quiet title, condemnation. 



The Board and its Duties 31 

14. Approve text-books selected by the chief executive and approve 
courses of study recommended by him. 

15. Represent needs of the schools before the public, e.g., press, plat- 
form. 

16. Serve as la3Tnen, ready (even after retiring from the board) to 
champion school needs and to further public support of the schools, 
e.g., as others champion good streets, parks. 

17. Act as a court of final appeal for teachers, supervisors and patrons 
in cases which the superintendent has not been able to dispose of, or 
which may be appealed from his decision. 

18. Hear communications, written or oral, from citizens or organizations 
on matters of administration or policy. 

19. Visit the schools, observe or investigate the efficiency of instruc- 
tion. 

When the judgments of business men and board members are 
considered separately, though insufficient in number to warrant 
positive conclusions, we find little change from the order above 
in the relative rank of the different duties. The selection of the 
superintendent is placed first. Advising with the chief executive 
on his recommendations for extension of educational activities is 
placed second, passing upon recommendations for capital outlays 
third, and passing upon the budget fourth. Adopting a set of 
by-laws to designate the authority of executive officers is raised 
to fifth rank. The duties regarded as least worthy of a board's 
attention are : to serve as laymen ready to further public sup- 
port of the schools ; to visit the schools and investigate the 
efficiency of instruction ; and to hear communications. 

The suggestions received as to important duties which may have 
been omitted from the list were not sufficiently agreed, to in any 
material way affect the results. The one which was perhaps 
most emphatically maintained is that of representing the needs 
of the community. This duty is one which the careful observer 
will see has been analyzed into several specific duties in our list. 
The one most frequently suggested was that of becoming familiar 
with school development elsewhere. 



32 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

4. The Work of Board Committees 

a. Previous Studies 

As a preliminary to presenting the facts found with reference 
to committees of the board we may survey briefly the results 
found and the conclusions reached by other investigators in this 
field. 

Bard *° found 996 committees in 112 city school districts, an 
average of nearly nine to each district. The committee occurring 
most frequently was that of finance with 73 while 25 others pro- 
vided a committee whose duties had to do with finance. The 
next committee in order of frequency was that of supplies with 
33. Of the committees found, 255 appeared only once each and 
54 twice. 

"With only a few exceptions, boards of education provide in their by- 
laws for a number of standing committees, to which are intrusted prac- 
tically all the more important duties imposed upon such bodies by law. . . . 
They constitute a convenient means by which the board of education may 
discharge the functions which it is required by law to discharge." He con- 
cludes that: "This practice, if employed with judgment and discretion has 
much merit, particularly in the case of large boards with executive func- 
tions to perform." 

Dr. Bard, however, does not submit any evidence tending to 
prove the merit which he claims for committee action. Whether 
or not committees should be allowed to perform executive func- 
tions is open to serious question. His statement that "a study 
of these committees, however, may show either a great lack of 
agreement in boards' conceptions of what really are the things of 
most vital importance in their educational systems or a great 
diversity of interests varying in importance with the different 
districts," here couched in terms of a possibility, will be seen from 
the evidence found in this study to be borne out by the facts. 

Professor Moore in his report on the New York City Board 
and its committees *^ has this to say with reference to the 
committee system in one city having a large board of 
education : 

40 The City School District, pp. 63-4. 

*^ How New York Administers its Schools, 1913, p. S4f. 



The Board and its Duties 33 

"So efScient are these small, compact groups when they meet to dispose 
of the business which is brought to them that I am confident any one of 
its major committees would make a more effective board of education than 
the board itself. The internal weakness of the present system is that the 
committees do the work and that there is nothing of real moment left for 
the board to do, but to meet and formally ratify what the committees have 
done. ..." "The committee system of the board leads to a confusion of 
authority and action in determining policies and action for the control of 
the schools. The committees do not form an interlocking system, but a 
series of more or less independent sovereignties ; each has a business of 
its own, and is naturally exceedingly jealous of its own prerogatives. 
They communicate with each other diplomatically, like pride protecting, 
independent states. Each committee conducts the work of its own execu- 
tive bureau to which it functions as a board of directors, and whose busi- 
ness must wait upon the meeting of the committee for its disposal. . . . 
Much delay in conducting the business of the board is caused by this reten- 
tion of executive duties by the board members and the calendars of the 
committees are crowded with a mass of routine details which do not in 
their nature call for board action for their disposal. A resident director 
or general manager . . . could take care of much of this detail, and his 
presence would make greatly for the strengthening and unifying of the 
work of the different bureaus, and for the direct and speedy transaction 
of business of the school department. ... In order that the board may 
function as a whole, the number of such committees must be as few as 
possible and their authority must be limited to the initiation of action by 
means of recommendations and suggestions and not be allowed to extend 
to the final disposal of business, except where specific matters are, from 
time to time, referred to them for decision by the board as a whole. . . . 
The great number of such committees at present is due, not to the inher- 
ent necessities of the work but to the great number of board members 
for whom committee appointment must be found. . . . When they are 
once created work must be found for the committees, and functions which 
should be intrusted to an executive staff are retained by board mem- 
bers. . . . The most serious fault of the committee system is that it pre- 
vents the board from transacting its business as a board, upon considera- 
tion of it by the whole board; that it substitutes for the initiative of all the 
members the initiative of a part of them and trusts to a minority of the 
body the first hand determination of its policies and decisions. ..." 

Deffenbaugh, in his investigation *^ of approximately 1300 
cities, of from 2500 to 30,000 population, made six years later 
than Bard's, found a much smaller range of interests demanding 
the attention of a standing committee. He lists in all forty-eight 

*2 School Administration in the Smaller Cities, pp. 20-22. 



34 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

kinds of committees. His statements of the findings and his 
conclusions are as follows : 

"Though school boards in most of the smaller cities have been reduced 
in size to 5, 6, or 7 members, some of them still cling to the custom of 
having many standing committees. Sometimes there are as many commit- 
tees as there are board members, each member holding a chairmanship. 
What these committees find to do is a question difficult to answer, either 
there is nothing for some of them to do or they take upon themselves 
duties that do not belong to them but to paid experts. . . . Clearly the 
functions of many of these committees, such as those on promotion, exam- 
inations, penmanship, course of study and truancy, must duplicate the 
functions of expert employees of the school board. . . . How many and 
what committees a board should have may depend to a certain extent 
upon local conditions and upon the size of the board, but in general a 
board composed of 7 or fewer members needs no standing committees. 
If the superintendent is given the power due in preparation of the school 
budget, in the selection of teachers, and in the general professional and 
business administration of the schools, he seldom needs the assistance of 
a committee. A board of 5. 6, or 7 members can discuss and pass upon 
the recommendations of the superintendent as well as a committee of 
three. When the work is done by committees, there is usually but little 
discussion by the entire board; one part of the board may be almost 
entirely ignorant of what another part is doing. ... If there are any com- 
mittees, their attention should be directed chiefly to the business affairs 
of the board. In a board of from five to nine members two committees 
could easily look after the business of the board — a committee on finance 
and accounts and one on buildings and grounds. ..." 

Professor Cubberley, after participating in the surveys of Port- 
land, Butte, Salt Lake, and Oakland, has this to say of com- 
mittees : *^ 

"The most common means by which mismanagement and interference 
with technical and professional functions of the experts of the school de- 
partment comes is through the attempt of such boards to manage the 
schools by means of a large number of standing committees. Committees 
commonly exist, such as those on courses of study, text-books, instruc- 
tion, and promotion and grading, which simply cannot exercise intelli- 
gently any of the functions usually assigned to such bodies. The work 
attempted by such committees involves a professional knowledge and 
judgment which no city board of education, either as a body or through 
a committee, ought ever try to assume." 

*3 Public School Administration, p. 112f. 



The Board and its Duties 35 

Professor Cubberley cites ten cases to illustrate what he styles 
"the over-activity of committees." 

"All of these cases of over-activity on the part of board members and 
board committees arise from a confusion as to what the members were 
elected to do. In the exercise of its legislative functions the board will 
need few, if any, standing committees. If the board is small, say five or 
seven, action can be taken better as a whole, all committees being purely 
temporary. In any case, three committees will be sufficient for even a 
large board, namely a committee on educational affairs, a committee on 
business affairs, and a committee on buildings and finance." 

Ballou, following an investigation in seventy-two cities, con- 
cludes as follows : ** 

"The few members of a standing committee play altogether too large a 
part in the decisions of the board, as shown by the fact that (1) more than 
eighty per cent of the committees are minority committees, and (2) the 
reports of committees whether large or small, through necessity, are sel- 
dom discussed by the whole board. The committee organization permits 
the exercise of pernicious influences, because (1) of the prevailing method 
of appointment of members by the president of the board, because (2) 
of its closed meetings, and because (3) it is easier to deal unscrupulously 
with a small committee than it is with a whole board. 

The committee system violates four principles of effective administra- 
tion, as follows: (1) The duties of each committee cannot be clearly de- 
fined, because the functions of committees overlap, due to the fact that 
committees are usually organized according to no known principle of or- 
ganization. (2) This makes it impossible to fix the responsibihty of each 
committee, because no one knows just what its duties are. (3) The ab- 
sence of any well-defined responsibilities makes it impossible to hold the 
committee responsible for its acts. (4) The committee system tends to 
confuse lay control with professional and executive management, because 
the prevailing practice is to refer the discharge of executive functions to 
committees of the board rather than to the board's professional execu- 
tives. For these reasons the practice of boards of education of organizing 
into standing committees for the transaction of their business must be 
condemned." 

The conclusions of these investigators may be summarized 
somewhat as follows : 

1. There is no agreement among boards as to the number or 
the kind of committees. — Bard, Deffenbaugh. 

2. A large number of committees is to be attributed rather to 

**The Appointment of Teachers in Cities, pp. 121-122. 



36 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

the size of the board than the amount of work to be done, 
merely as a way out of a dilemma. — Ballou, Bard, Deffen- 
baugh, Moore — or to provide members with chairmanships. 
— Deffenbaugh. 

3. Committees tend to perform executive functions. — Ballou, 
Bard, Cubberley, Deffenbaugh, Moore. 

4. The committee system fosters a divided rather than a 
centralized or coordinated form of organization. — Moore. 

5. Committee policy tends to become board policy, the board 
as a whole being ignorant of the real work of each com- 
mittee. — Ballou, Moore, Deffenbaugh. 

6. The functions of committees overlap. — Ballou, Moore. 

7. Committees form a means of unnecessary delay and post- 
ponement of action. — Cubberley, Deffenbaugh. 

8. Committees permit of pernicious influence. — Ballou. 

9. A board of proper size needs only a few if any standing 
committees. — Cubberley, Deffenbaugh. 

The limited amount of time available for this study made it in- 
advisable to duplicate the efforts of these investigators on certain 
phases of committee action. For such matters as the size and 
kind of committees the reader is referred to the studies of Ballou, 
Bard, and Deffenbaugh. With reference to the conclusions 
reached by these investigators such evidence as we have found in 
support or contradiction will be presented. The first of these is 
supported by the evidence found in the present study. The near- 
est approach we have to agreement on the number of committees 
is that 53 per cent of our boards agree that there should be from 
4 to 6 committees. The number occurring most frequently is 5, 
which occurs in twenty cases. 

b. The Relation of Committees to the Size of the Board 

The repeated reference by other investigators to the relation 
of the size of boards of education to the number of committees 
they provide, independent of any statistical analysis of the actual 
situation seemed to call for further investigation. Accordingly 
one of the first steps with reference to the committee problem was 
to find what relation exists between size of board and frequency 
of committees. From Table I we find that the number of com- 
mittees for the one hundred cities ranges from none at all in ten 



The Board and its Duties 37 

cities to nineteen in Providence. The median number is six and 
the average is six. To find what relation exists between the size 
of boards and the number of committees, a correlation by the 
Spearman method of ranking was made between these two fac- 
tors. To discover whether or not the number of committees is 
due as much to the size of city represented as to the size of the 
board, it was necessary to correlate also size of city and number of 
standing committees. Correlating size of board and number of 
committees gives a positive relationship of p := +-56. The re- 
sult when correlating size of city and number of committees gives 
p = -}--15. Thus it is evident that there is a significant positive 
correlation between the size of the board and the number of com- 
mittees for these one hundred cities. This then bears out the con- 
tention of those who hold that large boards tend to have many 
committees, and is directly opposed to the statement made by Bal- 
lou *^ that there is no correlation between the two. Since the re- 
sult of our second correlation is small the results of the two cor- 
relations may be taken as an argument in favor of small boards 
for the administration of our city school systems. 

If it were the quantity of work to be attended that is causing 
boards to split up into committees we should expect to find a high 
correlation between the size of the city and the number of com- 
mittees. It may be argued by some that size of city does not in- 
dicate the quantity of work to be done, yet a comparison of the 
minutes of large and small cities indicates a larger amount of 
work usually covered in the course of a regular meeting in the 
larger cities. Compare for example the minutes for any period 
of several months of such cities as the nine of over 300,000 popu- 
lation in Table II with those of such cities as Reading, Worcester, 
Albany, Somerville, Lancaster, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Eliza- 
beth, cities ranging in population from 150,000 to 39,000. If the 
minutes of the latter group are compared with those of cities with 
a population from 5,000 to 25,000 the difference in the amount of 
business transacted will be further apparent. Large cities employ 
and promote more teachers, they purchase more sites and erect 
more buildings whose plans must be passed upon, and for which 
means of financing must be adopted. With more actual business 
to be transacted in large cities we might expect many committees 

*^Ibid., p. 114. 



38 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

and large cities to be found together. Such is however not the 
case as our correlations show. One reason why small cities are 
almost as apt to have as many committees as large cities is prob- 
ably due to the fact that in large cities additional executive officers 
perform duties commonly assigned to committees in smaller cities. 
The fact that cities are frequently found having many committees 
is then to be attributed to the large board rather than to the actual 
demands of the situation. 

In view of the fact that size of board appeared to be the largest 
single factor in determining whether or not a board shall have 
committees, information was sought in cities visited as to the pur- 
pose of committees. The reason commonly given by superin- 
tendents, when asked why the board of education in that particular 
city found it necessary to have committees, was that there is too 
much work to be covered for all members to attend to all matters 
needing attention. As one superintendent ^® expressed it, "There 
is absolutely too much business to be done without committee ac- 
tion." That city has a board of nine members and thirteen com- 
mittees, but a population of less than 75,000. Another city visited, 
where the board finds too much to do as a board, has a board of 
twelve. In a third city of less than 40,000 population and a board 
of nine, in which the writer attended a board meeting, practically 
all of the board's business is done through committees and the real 
work of the committees apparently occurs behind closed doors. 
The formal board meeting in that city as in some others visited is 
little less than an attempt to deceive the public. Committee re- 
ports, and resolutions were read so fast that the writer had dif- 
ficulty in following them and as fast as they were read they were 
approved. Of the fifteen cities visited, seven have boards of 
either five or six members. Six out of the seven have com- 
mittees, but committee action in four appears to be largely per- 
functory. Of the remaining eight, all having boards of nine 
or more, committee action appears to play an important part in 
the deliberations of at least six. While the number of cases here 
is too few to furnish conclusive evidence, there is strong indica- 
tion that size of board is the determining factor. 

*^ For reasons of courtesy cities visited will rarely be mentioned in 
name. The names of the cities to which specific references allude are 
filed with the Department of Educational Administration, Teachers Col- 
lege. 



The Board and its Duties 39 

c. The Work of Three Committees Occurring most Frequently 

To find out what duties committees perform and if possible to 
shed further Hght on the committee problem the duties of three 
committees were studied in some detail. The three committees 
occurring most frequently, namely, buildings, finance, and 
teachers,^'^ were selected. A tabulation was made of the duties 
assigned by boards having either of these committees. For 
boards whose minutes were read a tabulation was also made of 
the matters treated in reports of the committees or referred to 
them for consideration. For purposes of treatment it has been 
necessary to group duties closely related, the different duties pre- 
scribed and performed running into hundreds when tabulated as 
originally worded. By so doing it is possible for errors to be 
made, but it is not probable that this has in any material way af- 
fected the results, since no great stress is here attached to fre- 
quency, particularly in the minutes. 

In presenting the data collected on the three committees an at- 
tempt will be made to point out the capacities in which committees 
may be of real and valued service as opposed to those in which 
their presence becomes a detriment to the proper administration of 
the school system. We shall attempt further to select from a con- 
structive point of view some of the particular duties which com- 
mittees may well exercise. Contrariwise, we shall attempt to 
point out duties assigned to committees which cannot well be 
justified under the category of proper matters for the attention 
of a committee. From lack of sufficient data there will possibly 
remain in case of each committee some duties concerning which 
no sharp conclusions seem warranted. The criteria used in judg- 
ing as to the proper functions of a committee are those employed 
throughout the study, the application of a particular criterion de- 
pending upon its adaptability. The relative importance of duties 
assigned to committees may be approximated by reference to the 
tentative scale of board duties. Were sufficient time available 
to secure a consensus of judgments on the duties of the different 
committees as in the case of the duties of the board, it would aid 
materially in evaluating committee practices. Data on the duties 
of the three committees were secured in sixty- four, seventy, and 

*^ The precise title of these committees is not always that given here. 



40 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

seventy-two cases respectively for the committees on teachers, 
buildings and finance. Seventy-six cities having committees are, 
however, represented owing to the fact that nine of these cities 
have no committee on teachers, two none on buildings and two 
none on finance. In the remaining instances either data were 
insufficient or the rules were stated only in general terms, 

(1) The Committee on Buildings. Table VII gives the duties 
as summarized for the building committee. The first line of 
figures under each duty given represents key numbers to cities of 
Table I and the second gives the same facts for cities of Table II. 
The first point which may be made with reference to committee 
action as found in connection with the building committee is that 
boards as a whole fail to prescribe specifically the limits of com- 
mittee action. It is difficult to determine the exact extent to which 
committees participate in the duties assigned to them or how far 
the rule expects them to go. From the rules of most boards it 
is impossible to determine whether "repairs" are intended to mean 
only very minor repairs or whether they extend as far as remodel- 
ling a building. One cannot tell whether "supervision of build- 
ings" means only a very general supervision or a minute super- 
vision. In some cases it appears to be only general and in others 
minute. Due in part, at least, to such laxity the duties assigned 
to the building committee are such that the committee may act 
largely in an executive capacity, independent of the board's 
salaried executive officers. It is not required to assume a posi- 
tion which is more in accord with principles of good management 
and which permits of the professional skill of the chief executive 
and his assistants being used, i.e., a position advisory to and in 
support of the chief executive. 

The one important duty of Table VII which appears least sub- 
ject to two possible lines of action is that of examining the report 
or recommendations of executive officers of the building depart- 
ment. It occurs, however, in the rules of but three cities, St. 
Louis, Louisville, and Covington. St. Louis is an exception to 
common practice in that it does specify what the nature of the 
committee activities shall be : 

"The duties of standing committees shall be supervisory and not execu- 
tive. Each committee shall have the powder to investigate the affairs of the 
department under its supervision, and to call for information from the 



The Board and its Duties 41 

TABLE VII « 

Building Committee 

Rules Min. 

Inspect or supervise buildings : 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 12-3, 19, 20, 31-3, 
35-9, 42, 45, 49, 50, 56-9, 67-70, 74-6, 78, 81, 83-4, 87-9, 90-1, 

93, 99 43 

15, 39, 47, 56 4 

Have charge, control, determine or supervise repairs and im- 
provements : 2, 5, 7, 8, 10, 20-1, 25, 28, 33-7, 41, 44-5, 53, 

58, 62, 66, 70-1, 82-3, 85-9, 93-4, 99 33 

5, 8, 11, 12, 15, 17, 22, 29-31. 33-4, 40, 42, 51, 53, 55, 

59, 60 19 

Have charge, control, oversight or supervision of construction 

or record acceptance of work : 5, 7, 12-3, 19, 28, 34, 36-7, 39, 

41, 44, 47-8, 51, 54-5, 57-9, 66-7, 70, 83-6, 89 28 

3, 6. 15, 22, 35, 56-7, 60 8 

Recommend repairs or improvements or estimate cost : 1, 5, 
8, 10, 19-21, 28, 31-2, 36-9, 44-5, 55, 60, 71, 73, 75, 78, 81-3, 

87, 90, 93, 99 29 

3, 4, 14-5, 17, 29, 34, 44, 55-6, 59, 60 12 

Recommend janitors or their salaries; control, direct, super- 
vise or investigate charges vs. them or other building em- 
ployees : 2, 5, 7, 12, 20-1, 32-4, 36, 38-9, 41-2, 44, 48-9, 53, 

55-7, 59, 74, 76, 83-4, 87, 89, 91 29 

3, 6, 11, 15, 17, 28, 35, 50, 54-6, 59, 60 13 

Recommend purchase or selection of sites or erection of build- 
ings: 4, 10, 12-3, 38-9, 41, 44-5, 53, 55, 57-8, 60, 67, 69, 
75, 78, 83-4 20 

6, 8, 15, 22, 35, 43, 51, 55-6, 58 10 

Secure bids, recommend or award contracts, or see that they 

are carried out: 5, 10, 12, 25-6, 34, 36, 38, 50-1, 60, 70, 

73-4, 85, 88 16 

3, 4, 6, 8, 11-3, 15, 17, 20, 33, 35-6, 38, 40, 42, 44, 

50, 52-60 27 

Examine, submit, or supervise plans : 1, 5, 12-3, 17, 37, 39, 51, 

53, 70, 83, 85, 88 , 13 

8, 17, 22, 33, 35, 39, 53, 55-6, 59, 60 11 

Purchase or make recommendations on the purchase of sup- 
plies or equipment: 2, 5, 28, 31, 34, 36, 38, 50, 53-4 10 

3,8,13,15,17,20,35,45,50,53,55-7,60 14 

Attend to or recommend purchase, sale or renting of prop- 
erty: 4, 5, 8, 36, 39, 41, 51, 57, 59 9 

2, 6, 11, 13, 15, 22, 40, 43, 50, 52, 55, 59 12 

*^ Upper rows of numbers refer to cities of Table I, lower to Table II. 



42 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

Have charge of or make recommendations on insurance : 12-3, 

32, 35, 39, 53, 69, 75 8 

35, 41, 45-6 4 

Direct or supervise executive officers of building department: 

12, 29, 32, 44 4 

Approve bills or recommend payment on contracts : 20, 35, 47, 

54-5 5 

3, 8, 10, 33-5, 52-3, 55, 59, 60 11 

Pass on request for use of building or recommend conditions 

for use : 7, 20, 91 3 

6, 30, 35, 51-2, 55, 60 7 

Recommend superintendent of buildings, architect or engineer, 
or their salaries — employ draughtsman, inspectors ; super- 
vise or control them: 4, 5, 12, 51, 89 5 

6, 8, 15, 22 4 

Examine report or recommendations of executive officers of 
the department and make recommendations thereon: 11, 
25-6 3 

13, 52 2 

Recommend budget for building department, methods of rais- 
ing funds, apportionment or transfer : 48, 93 2 

6, 8, 56-7 4 

Supervise boundaries : 5, 38 2 

3, 15, 33 3 

administrative officer of the department, and any assistant, subordinate 
or employee thereof . . . No standing committee shall have any power 
to direct the action of the administrative officer or of any assistant, sub- 
ordinate or employee of the department under its charge . . ." ^^ 

The need of committee participation in the supervision of build- 
ing construction would seem to depend upon the presence or ab- 
sence of an executive officer competent to undertake such work. 
In cities having no superintendent of buildings this duty is quite 
likely to be administrative in character. Only nineteen of the 
cities of Table I represented among the first three duties of Table 
VII, have a superintendent of buildings. From this it would seem 
that as far as the supervision of construction is concerned the 
committee often performs executive functions and does not limit 
itself to an advisory capacity. It may be that in some cities mem- 
bers of the board have had valuable experience in supervising the 
erection of buildings. But why not attempt to secure the highest 

« Rules of the Board of Education, 1914, Rule 13, Sec. VI. 



The Board and its Duties 43 

type of executive service the board can afford? If the cities rep- 
resented in the first three duties given are distributed according 
to size it will be seen that forty- four of the sixty- four have a 
population of more than 25,000. These forty-four at least might 
be expected to provide a trained assistant to the superintendent to 
take charge of buildings rather than to trust to the uncertain lay 
expertness of a committee. It may be, however, that executive 
officers desire the committee to share in assuming the responsi- 
bility for the approval of the construction work of new buildings. 
This occurs in some cities. Such service by board members, 
however, represents lay executive action. 

Members of the committee may render what is possibly the 
most expert service in the purchase of sites. Business men of 
ability may be more familiar with real estate prices and values 
and may be able to drive a sharper bargain than an executive of- 
ficer. This is particularly true in smaller cities where the chief 
executive has had only a limited amount of experience. If they 
have had considerable experience in the real estate field as hap- 
pens to be the case in a number of cities covered by the study, 
they may render the community a valuable service. This will be 
true if their expert knowledge is placed at the disposal of the 
chief executive and if they recommend purchases only after he 
has assured them that the site is adapted to the educational re- 
quirements. Unless their services are rendered in this manner 
we may have valuable experience and training on the part of the 
members of the committee on the one hand and the chief executive 
and his assistants on the other working at cross purposes rather 
than coordinating at a maximum efficiency. An illustration of 
how this service may be rendered is given by Fremont, Nebr. 
After the board and the superintendent had decided upon the de- 
sirability of a certain site for its new high school building a mem- 
ber of the board engaged in the real estate business was able, 
ostensibly for private purposes, to secure options on a major por- 
tion of the block and thus prevent an inflated appraisal value on 
the balance before owners were aware of his real motive. This 
is a type of lay administrative service that cannot be overlooked. 

The second and more striking thing perhaps to be noted is the 
lack of agreement even between boards which decide that their 
organization demands a building committee. This may be seen 



44 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

from the total column of frequencies for each provision as found 
in the rules. Only the first occurs in more than one-half of the 
seventy-three cases. It is only if we grant, as some may contend 
we should, that the first three duties given refer to the same func- 
tion in practice, that we have anything like agreement as to what 
should be some of the duties of a building committee. In that 
case we would have sixty-four cities ^° (omitting duplications) out 
of seventy-three. Only six of the duties prescribed occur with a 
frequency of twenty or more. 

A third point to be noted is the evident difference in relative 
importance of the duties assigned this committee. While we can- 
not assume to measure accurately the relative importance of any 
of them, we may reach an approximation by referring to the ten- 
tative scale of board duties for comparison. The assignments of 
the building committee will be seen to vary all the way from such 
relatively important matters as examining the report of executive 
officers of the department and examining building plans or super- 
vising construction to such minor matters as approving bills or 
supervising boundaries. In so far as such duties as supervising 
construction, examining building plans, making recommendations 
on the selection of sites and the erection of buildings, examining 
the report of executive officers of the building department and 
recommending the budget for buildings, represent a careful study 
and weighing of the superintendent's proposed policies in order 
to help him to shape his own judgment and to support him in his 
proposals before the board, they appear to be the duties most 
worthy of committee attention. 

For the purpose of having a group of men who have already 
given careful attention to the plans of a building as recommended 
by the executive officers and who stand ready to defend the action 
recommended when the board meets for discussion of the plans 
the building committee may furnish needed support. The same 
would be true with reference to the question as to whether or not 
a new building is needed and as to the location to be chosen, the 
report of executive officers on the progress of work on buildings, 
and the budget for buildings. These are important matters in 
which executives may desire the benefit of discussion to assist 
them in shaping the policies to be recommended to the board and 

60 Table VII. 



The Board and its Duties 45 

in discussing the proposed policies before the board. The danger 
is that the committee instead of supporting executive officers may- 
attempt to submit alternative policies not approved by the execu- 
tive officers. In such event the board is required to choose be- 
tween its professional, paid advisors and its lay advisors. 

In the event that committee action takes the direction indicated 
above it is not a case of interference with the professional ability 
of the chief executive and his assistants but an attempt to bring 
to his assistance and place at his disposal whatever of lay expert- 
ness members of the committee may have acquired through long 
experience. The duties of a committee are important for it to 
perform in so far as such action becomes an aid and not a hin- 
drance in the way of permitting full use of the skill represented in 
the executive officers of the system, i. e., the superintendent and 
his assistants. They are important also so far as the board is 
placed in a position to know more fully the probable results of 
one action or another toward proposed policies. Finally they are 
important in so far as the principles of good business administra- 
tion indicated in the chapter following are observed. 

Such being the case the danger of permitting a committee to 
exercise such a function as recommending an architect or an 
engineer or a superintendent of buildings should be apparent. 
This duty is assigned the building committee in Akron, Ohio, 
New York City, Yonkers, Portland, Ore., and Worcester, all cities 
steeped in committee activity, none having less than eight com- 
mittees and three having boards of fifteen or more. The selection 
of such officers is a matter in which the two possible lines of com- 
mittee action need to be carefully distinguished. Since the board 
expects the superintendent to be its professional leader he must 
have assistants capable of rendering the quality of service he re- 
quires. The committee cannot have a standard different from 
that of the superintendent if he and not the committee is to be 
the head of the school system. For a committee to choose subor- 
dinate executive officers is contrary to accepted principles of busi- 
ness administration. It represents a practice as absurd as to ex- 
pect that the road committee rather than the general manager of 
the Pennsylvania Railroad Company should nominate the super- 
intendent of transportation. If the committee serves only to as- 
sist the superintendent in arriving at a decision as to the man most 



46 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

competent to fill the position, it may render him valued support. 
Then its service is advisory rather than executive. Unless the 
rules specify carefully and unless the superintendent is careful to 
see that this duty of the committee is carefully prescribed as a 
part of his own contract with the board there is little assurance 
that the committee will not work at cross purposes with the super- 
intendent. 

In such matters as recommending janitors, securing bids, pur- 
chasing or recommending the purchase of equipment, directing 
the executive officers of the building department and passing upon 
requests for the use of buildings, the building committee seems to 
be outside of the field of its legitimate endeavor. Each of these 
are matters requiring professional knowledge and judgment, 
They are executive and belong properly to the superintendent and 
his assistants. Janitors must meet the requirements that the 
superintendent of buildings regards as necessary in his depart- 
ment. They must also be of such character and training as to 
fit in well with the educational scheme of the superintendent. 
They must be subject to the control and direction of both of these 
officers if the janitorial service is to reach the stage of efficiency 
to which the executive officers of the system are capable of lead- 
ing it. 

Recommendations on the purchase of equipment may assume 
two aspects, the one advisory, approving the superintendent's re- 
quest that the board purchase equipment, and the other executive, 
having to do with the actual selection. The latter represents an 
interference in a professional matter. The rules seldom distin- 
guish between the two. The folly of assigning such duties to a 
committee was illustrated recently by the building committee in 
Chicago which decided "on the toss of a coin" ^^ to accept an offer 
for the sale of an automatic screw machine of $925. The princi- 
pal had recommended its sale and the supervisor of technical work 
and the superintendent had given their approval. 

The attempt to direct officers of the building department, which 
occurs in Yonkers, St. Joseph, Moline, and Sioux City, and did 
until recently in Denver, represents direct interference with the 
duty of the chief executive. Considering requests for the use of 
buildings represents a waste of time that must be withdrawn from 

" Minutes of the Board of Education, Dec. 22, 1915, p. 138. 



The Board and its Duties 47 

more important matters. In a meeting attended of one board 
which has a committee on buildings, approximately one-half of 
the time was consumed in considering requests for the use of the 
high school building. 

A further aspect of the committee question is revealed by the 
duties assigned the building committee. If we take the cities rep- 
resented among those whose boards prescribe that the building 
committee shall examine building plans, we find that of the 
thirteen, seven have boards of twelve or more members and two 
more have boards of nine members. Of the seven with boards of 
twelve or more, one has sixteen committees, two have fifteen, one 
eleven, one eight, one seven, and one six. This suggests that on 
such important matters as the consideration of construction plans 
large boards may tend to permit or even expect the committee to 
do the board's own thinking. Committee policy may tend to take 
the place of board policy. 

(2) The Committee on Teachers. Table VIII gives similar 
facts for the committee on teachers. That a fewer number of 
boards provide a committee on teachers may be evidence that the 
professional nature of many of the duties commonly assigned this 
committee is recognized at least by some boards. 

As in case of the building committee it is difficult to determine 
the extent to which committee participation is intended. Rules 
not infrequently omit to state whether the committee may make 
alternative recommendations to the board in such professional 
matters as the appointment of teachers or the selection of text- 
books and course of study, or whether their function is to weigh 
recommendations of the superintendent. Not infrequently the 
duties assigned this committee are so worded that if the com- 
mittee desired to exercise its prerogatives it could become a serious 
factor in the actual administration of the educational department. 

The provision for committee participation in the appointment 
of teachers is most common, occurring fifty-two times in a pos- 
sible sixty-five. Aside from this single exception there is how- 
ever, as in case of the building committee, little agreement as to 
the diities that should be assigned this committee. Only three 
provisions occur with a frequency of twenty or more. Some 
boards assign certain duties to this committee which we found 
were assigned by others to the committee on buildings. 



48 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 



TABLE VIII 52 

Teachers Committee 

Rules Min. 

Make recommendations for the appointment of teachers : 1, 
2, 4, 7, 8, 10, 12-3, 15, 17, 21, 26, 28-9, 31-9, 42, 44-5, 48-50, 

53-6, 58-9, 66, 71, 74-5, 78, 81-5, 87-89, 94, 96-7, 99 52 

2-6, 9-11, 13, 15, 20, 22, 29-31, 33, 35, 39, 43, 47, 

50-2, 54-6, 58-9, 60 29 

Make recommendations on salary or appropriations for : 1, 

2, 4, 7, 10, 12-3, 17, 20-1, 32, 34, 36, 38-9, 42, 45, 50,53-4, 

58, 69, 81-3, 88, 89 27 

3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 13, 15-6, 20, 30-1, 35, 39, 47, 49, 

52, 54-5, 57-60 22 

Consider changes in text-books or courses of study: 7, 8, 
10. 12, 20-1, 29. 35, 38. 40, 47, 49, 51. 54, 62, 69, 75, 78, 

81, 96 20 

2, 4, 8, 11, 13, 15, 34, 47, 49, 52, 55, 57, 59, 60 14 

Ascertain qualifications of teachers, or have charge of exam- 
inations, or recommend members of board of examiners : 

4, 8, 10, 13, 15, 17. 34, 36, 40, 42, 47, 49, 51, 53, 57-8, 87, 89. 18 

4, 6, 15, 55, 59, 60 6 

Investigate charges against teachers, suspend or recommend 
dismissal: 2, 4. 8, 10. 13, 28. Z2>, 35. 38, 44, 49, 50, 53-4, 

67, 70 16 

6, 59... 2 

Make recommendations on assignment, transfer, promotion, 
leaves of absence, or resignations of teachers : 2, 4, 8, 

13, 28, 32, 49, 50, 53, 66, 71, 78, 83, 89, 96 15 

2-4, 6, 9-11, 13, 15, 29, 30, 47, 51-2, 54-6, 58-60 20 

Consider superintendent's report or recommendations for 
extensions or readjustments: 4, 8, 10-1, 20, 25-6, 28, 36, 

45, 49, 56, 66, 70 14 

2-4, 6, 8, 13, 15, 35, 49, 52, 55-7, 59, 60 15 

Visit schools, study the work of teachers, supervise their 
work, or report defects in instruction or management; 
call teachers' meetings: 4, 8, 10, 31, 35-40, 70, 84 12 

Prepare rules for the government of schools ; make recom- 
mendations on or have charge of matters of discipline 

and management: 4, 7, 10, 12, 29, ZZ, 44, 53-4, 69 10 

8, 47 2 

Consider matters of changing boundaries: 2, 10, 13, 67, 68.. 5 

6, 13, 57 3 

62 Upper rows of numbers refer to cities in Table I, lower to Table II. 



The Board and its Duties 49 

Determine classification of schools, direct manner of conduct- 
ing pupils' examinations, pass on qualifications of pupils 
for promotion, recommend changes in marking system or 
recommend methods of promotion: 2, 8, 40, 49, 68, 78.. 6 

5, 52, 60 3 

Recommend appointment of the superintendent : 45, 56 2 

39 1 

Recommend janitors or supervise them: 1, 82, 84 3 

Approve expenditures for supplies, pay roll; authorize emer- 
gency expenditures or consider matters of tuition : 10, 

12, 20, 51, 54 5 

12-3, 35, 49, 51, 55, 57, 58 8 

Have charge of or recommend measures of enforcing com- 
pulsory attendance : 53, 67 2 

52 1 

Recommend authorizing purchase of supplies or equipment: 
12, 20, 54, 59, 62 5 

6, 15, 35, 60 4 

As to the relative importance of the duties given to the com- 
mittee on teachers we find a wide range. Considering the super- 
intendent's report, appointing teachers and fixing their salaries 
upon the recommendation of the superintendent are important 
functions for the board itself to perform. It is to be questioned 
whether the board in the discharge of its own most important duty, 
the selection of the superintendent, should expect to be guided by 
the recommendations of a committee. Yet two boards ask the 
committee on teachers to make recommendations in this matter. 
In so far as the committee's choice tends to be substituted for 
board choice it is bad policy. Recommendations of those who 
know most about the ability of men available for the position of 
chief executive can be reduced to writing to which all may have ac- 
cess and which all may ponder over and discuss. The most eco- 
nomical use of a board's time in the case of this duty may be the 
use of a large amount of it. The appointment of teachers is some- 
times with and sometimes without the approval of the superin- 
tendent. When appointments are controlled by either the board or 
a committee, as happened recently in Burlington, Vermont, or as 
may occur in Philadelphia, it represents a pure waste of the super- 
intendent's professional skill which the community has a right to 
expect to be utilized. That such waste of professional skill occurs 



50 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

at times may be seen from the minutes of Burlington, Vermont." 
The superintendent nominated a science teacher but the board 
failed to approve ; he made a second nomination and the board 
again refused to approve. The board then filled the position with 
a man not recommended by the superintendent. In Philadelphia 
the committee may nominate irrespective of the superintendent's 
wishes.^* These are clear cut cases of interference in a profes- 
sional matter. 

The purely professional matters in which the committee on 
teachers is asked to take part is indeed surprising. It is asked 
by some boards to attend to such professional duties as super- 
vising instruction and passing upon the qualifications of pupils for 
promotion. It is somewhat surprising that Lead, S. D., in 1908 
or Topeka in 1914 did not make their committee on teachers, 
since their services were to be had without charge, head of the 
educational department in name as well as in power. "The 
teachers member . . . shall observe the modes of instruction 
and courses of study, report any defect or abuse and recommend 
any changes that may seem desirable." ^^ "It shall be the duty of 
this committee" to "examine the schools throughout the city as 
carefully as practicable, and report to the superintendent any de- 
fects in the management or instruction that they may notice." ^® 

If committees when assigned such purely professional duties 
as just noted faithfully perform their duties violations of two of 
our criteria will be evident. In the first place there will be inter- 
ference with teachers, principals, supervisors, and superinten- 
dents in the rendering of professional services, for which the com- 
munity is paying. In the second place such action on the part of 
committees requires an amount of time which none, save possibly 
men of no business of their own, can well afford to spend and 
still attend to the matters which are most important for a com- 
mittee or a board to consider. 

The duties which, aside from making recommendations on the 
appointment of the chief executive, are most worthy of the com- 

" Burlington, Vt. : Minutes June 17, 26, July 2, 1915. 
"By-laws, 1914. 

55 Lead, S.D., Rules and Regulations, 1908, sec. 17. The rules of 1908 
were received by Bryson Library, Teachers College, as late as 1914 upon 
request for a copy of the latest rules and regulations. 

56 Topeka : Rules and Regulations, 1914, Sec. 10. 



The Board and its Duties 51 

mittee's attention are considering the superintendent's report and 
recommendations for the extension or readjustment of the scope 
of educational endeavors, and making recommendations on mat- 
ters of salary. Approximately one-fourth of the sixty-five cities 
have seen fit to place the consideration of the superintendent's 
report among the duties of the committee on teachers. 

As evidence of how this provision may operate where a board 
and its committees have come to accept the business principle 
that the chief executive is to be looked upon as the educational 
leader and that suggestions of policy shall come through him, we 
may cite St. Louis. Here the board recognizes that the position 
of committees should be one of weighing the superintendent's 
recommendations, to the end that the community shall be pro- 
vided with those types of education which it most needs. The 
board found it necessary because of limited funds to ask the 
superintendent to suggest readjustments. The committee on in- 
struction reported as follows : 

"Your committee found itself, after the greatest and most anxious con- 
sideration of the subject, compelled to approve the superintendent's recom- 
mendations that the greater part of the summer school work be discon- 
tinued" . . . "the income of the board from all sources will not be suffi- 
cient to continue in its entirety all the branches which up to now have 
been maintained by the instruction department. This condition is a con- 
sequence, of course, of the board's activities in the admission of the five- 
year old children to the schools, the greater care of the general health of 
our young people . . . the natural growth of the school population and 
the consequent employment of an additional number of teachers and added 
school accommodations," . . . "we accept the superintendent's recom- 
mendation to dispense with what, in his opinion, and in the opinion of the 
committee, will do the least harm and affect the least number of chil- 
dren . , ." 5T 

The president of the board in making a report to the public on 
this same matter after its consideration by the superintendent and 
the committees on instruction and finance, stated that : 

"the board feels that it should retrench in every way possible in order 
to increase its school room accommodations, it having 113 portable build- 
ings. . . the superintendent of instruction informed the committee that 
in his opinion the following expenses might, with least harm, in the order 
in which they are mentioned, be discontinued : 

»7 Minutes, June 8, 1915, p. 1174. 



52 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

1st. The expense caused by wider use of the school buildings 

2nd. Appropriations for school sites 

3rd. Expense of optional extra hours in high schools 

4th. Excessive expense of Evening High Schools 

5th. The following parts of the Summer Term Schools : 

a. High School 

b. Grade schools, with the exception of the fourth 

quarter of the eighth grade 

c. Grade Manual Schools 

"For the present, it was concluded therefore that the greater part of the 
summer term activities be discontinued. 



President." ^^ 

Here was an opportunity for the committee to weigh the judg- 
ment of their chief executive and to debate that judgment with 
other members of the board. 

The practice of a board which assigns the duty of considering 
the superintendent's report to a committee must be judged good 
or bad in so far as it requires its executive to present the evidence 
for and against his proposals. It is to be judged in so far as it 
discusses these proposals with him in the light of the evidence 
and refuses to accept blindly the recommendations of the com- 
mittee. 

Aside from the duties mentioned as worthy of committee at- 
tention few remain which do not have professional aspects. 

(3) The Committee on Finance. In Table IX we have the 
duties considered by seventy-three boards as of sufficient import- 
ance to be assigned by rule to the committee on finance and the 
same duties as found for cities whose minutes were examined. 

There are some duties in whose performance this committee 
may either assume an administrative character, or take an ad- 
visory position, but on the whole the duties prescribed for the 
finance committee are more explicit than in the case of the two 
committees previously considered. This may be due to the fact 
that board members from their own training and experience know 
more of the possibilities and limitations in the field of finance 
than in a field like instruction. It was a quite common occur- 
rence to find among the boards visited that some members of 
the finance committee were men engaged in the banking business. 

58 76iJ., pp. 1194-1199. 



The Board and its Duties 53 

TABLE IX 59 

Finance Committee 

Rules Mia 
Estimate the annual budget and consider measures of finance 
for meeting it : 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10-12, 17, 19, 21, 29, 31-2, 
34, 36, 38-40, 42, 45, 48-51, 56-9, 62, 67-71, 73, 75-6, 78, 81-2, 

85-9, 91, 93, 99 SO 

2-4, 6, 8, 13, 15-7, 20, 23, 36-8, 47, 49, 54, 55, 56, 57, 59. . 21 

Examine bills and accounts of expenditures — see that only 
authorized expenditures are made: 4, 7, 8, 10, 12-3, 15, 
17, 19-22, 25-6, 28, 31, 33-4, 36, 38-41, 47-50, 53-5, 57-8, 60, 

62, 68-70, 73-5, 80, 84-7, 90-1, 93, 94, 97, 99 51 

2-4, 6, 8, 10-1, 15-7, 20, 23, 26, 30, 34-5, 42, 44, 47-9, 52, 

56-8, 60 26 

Supervise or have charge of finance — recommend authorizing 
expenditures within or not provided by budget : 1, 2, 4, 
5, 10, 12-3, 17, 20-2, 29, 33-4, 41, 44, 49, 51, 53, 55, 58, 
62, 67, 69, 75-6, 81-4, 86, 88, 93, 99 34 

2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 15, 52, 54-5, 57, 59, 60 12 

Examine reports of receipts and expenditures, and the condi- 
tion of funds: 8, 11-3, 17, 19-21, 33-4, 36, 41, 48, 51, 53, 

55, 67, 87, 89, 90, 93 21 

3, 4, 6, 10, 15, 34, 39, 52, 55-7 11 

Have charge of insurance: 1, 4, 20-1, 28, 47, 49, 76, 83-4, 

■ 88, 99 12 

15, 55 2 

Supervise the method of accounting : 8, 17, 21, 42, 57, 67, 71. . 7 

15 1 

Consider salary changes : 26, 28, 40, 55, 57 5 

2, 3, 6, 8, 9, 15, 33, 55, 57 9 

Consider safeguarding moneys — examining securities, bonds, 

contracts, depositories: 12-3, 41, 47, 57, 80, 83, 85-6 9 

2, 3, 15, 55 4 

Consummate large financial transactions when authorized — 
negotiate loans, sell bonds, change securities, purchase 

sites: 57,67-8 3 

2, 8, 21, 54 4 

Represent the Board before the city or the legislature : 1, 

5, 53, 82 4 

11, 12, 15, 35-6 5 

Estimate the value of board property and invoices thereof: 

20, 58 2 

2, 5, 6, 11, 49 5 

"Upper rows of numbers refer to cities of Table I, lower to Table II. 



54 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

Employ or control building or office employees and janitors: 

20, 28 2 

60 1 

Consider matters pertaining to bids and awarding contracts — 

buildings, equipment, supplies: 26 1 

2, 56 2 

Have charge of school census : 21 1 

In two Middle Western cities in particular that were visited, the 
finance committee of the board of education included in its mem- 
bership men generally considered among the prominent bankers 
of that section of the country. Such men are to be thought of 
as lay experts in large questions of finance such as negotiating 
loans, buying or selling bonds, considering matters of safeguard- 
ing the board's funds. Chief executive officers in these cities 
frankly acknowledged that these men were more competent to 
administer large measures of finance than they themselves. 

Only the first four of Table IX are assigned by twenty or more 
of the seventy-three boards. On all other duties they fail to 
agree in even twenty-five per cent of the cases. It is possible 
that certain combinations could be made of the duties as listed 
in Table IX, which would tend to give the appearance at least 
that there is more nearly substantial agreement as to what cer- 
tain duties of a finance committee should be. Some may mean 
examining accounts of expenditures to be the same thing as ex- 
amining reports of them. However, if we combine the second 
and fourth of the duties, the total increases only to fifty-five. If 
we combine the first and third, the total of cities represented in 
the rules by these two is sixty. 

We may note again for the committee on finance the relative 
importance of the work mapped out for this committee. A purely 
routine function, examining bills and accounts of expenditures 
already made, and which is not a matter of very grave import- 
ance, occurs as often as such an important duty as that of esti- 
mating the annual budget. If all boards had an adequate con- 
ception of the requirements of budget making, less time and atten- 
tion need be devoted to routine details. Through a thorough- 
going consideration of the reports of receipts and expenditures 
and the condition of its funds, made by executive officers, the 
members of the finance committee and the board may know the 



The Board and its Duties 55 

exact status of the board's financial ability. It is this, after all, 
which it needs to consider when voting upon new policies. For 
the committee to consume valuable time each month in scrutinizing 
bills of expenditures previously authorized and made and which 
after all mean nothing until summarized in adequate statistical 
form, is to deprive itself of time to consider adequately financial 
policies. 

The type of service that a committee on finance may give its 
board was previously indicated in the case of St. Louis. It is il- 
lustrated further in a report of the committee on finance in Pitts- 
burg. It reported as follows : 

■'Your Committee on Finance, after two months of careful considera- 
tion of the budget for the fiscal year . . . and after considering in connec- 
tion therewith the financial poHcies which, in its opinion, should character- 
ize the administration of school affairs for the coming year, begs to re- 
port as follows : 

1. No fundamental increase in salaries can be made without an in- 
crease in millage. 

2. No considerable extension of manual training centers, household 
economy centers, kindergarten, or of other school activities can 
be undertaken without an increase in millage. 

3. No program for the replacement of old buildings or for substan- 
tial additions thereto can be undertaken without a bond issue. 

4. Your committee is of the opinion that a just consideration for the 
taxpayers of the city will preclude any increase in the millage, and 
that in view of the large building operations under way and in 
contemplation, no further issue of bonds should be made at 
this time. 

We submit on these various propositions the following for your con- 
sideration : 

Requests made for schedule increases in teachers' salaries, if all were 
granted, would increase the tax rate almost one mill ... A very thorough 
comparison of our salary schedule with that of other cities shows that 
Pittsburg ranks well ... A very great deal of attention has been given 
to" . . . Manual Training and Domestic Science, . . . "and to the exten- 
sion of the kindergarten system . . . while it would be desirable to have 
centers for all these activities in each building, we feel that the policy of 
the board during the coming year toward these and all other ordinary 
school activities should be to work toward a maximum of efficiency in 
the administration of the system we now have established, rather than to 
make material extensions." . . . "we would not have been content to make 
this recommendation two years ago, but since that time unsafe and un- 



56 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

sanitary buildings have been made safe and sanitary; additional teachers 
have been added to eliminate overcrowding; additional high school ac- 
commodations have been provided ; ungraded rooms have been opened ; 
principals have been largely relieved of clerical duties ; special schools 
have been established ; closer supervision has been attained ; school ad- 
vantages have been largely equalized, equipment has been standardized, 
and proper provision has been made for sinking funds." ^o 

In this report of the Pittsburg finance committee we note that 
the committee has devoted its time to large questions of financial 
policy and not to administrative details. Its weakness, however, 
lies in a possible tendency to propose policies of its own, and 
which have not been initiated by executive officers. 

In Table IX the duties which are most deserving of attention 
among those found in the rules and regulations are: the annual 
budget, reports of the condition of the board's funds, questions of 
salary changes, and matters of representing the board's interests 
before city or legislative authorities. If the board requires that 
its chief executive submit an adequate detailed budget, there will 
be little need of further supervision of finance other than that pre- 
viously indicated. The board will have determined its financial 
policies in adopting the budget and since it will know precisely 
how the district's funds are to be spent, it can leave the actual 
spending thereof to those whom it employs for that purpose. 

d. The Substitution of Committee Policy for Board Policy 

To determine accurately to what extent committee policy tends 
to be substituted for board policy, a fact which such investigators 
as Moore, Defifenbaugh, and Ballon maintain, would require a 
much greater amount of field study than has been possible in the 
present study. However, to determine in some measure the rel- 
ative importance of the position occupied by committees in de- 
termining board policies the printed minutes of three meetings for 
a number of cities were selected. The cities were chosen at ran- 
dom from those having committees, whose printed proceedings 
were received. The minutes were selected at intervals of at least 
one month. The number of pages devoted to committee reports 
and the total number of pages of recorded proceedings are given 
in Table X. To arrive at some indication as to what extent re- 

60 Pittsburg, Minutes of the Board of Education, Jan. 20, 1914, pp. 142-44. 



The Board and its Duties 



57 



ports and recommendations of committees are accepted without 
amendment or division, the recorded actions on reports, recom- 
mendations, and resolutions offered by committees were noted. 
The results, omitting votes to merely receive the report, are given 
in the table. 

TABLE X 







01 




o 
















E»; 

o V 




•a 

u 
rS 
O 
W 

'o 

N 


E 
E 
o 
U 

"o 
6 


*o 

o2 • 


T3 
cd O 


3 
O C 

'So. 
ca o 

Ct3 


rt o 

u 


o 


O 

'37 


u 

V 

> 

o 

'rt 


T3 

<u 

O. 
o 
•a 


Is 


C513 

o a 

in "< 

.is 




m 


^ 


HPh 


PLiU 


0< 


a 


« 


iJ 


< 


« 


HE 


Chicago .... 


21 


9 


210.5 


196 


16 














16 


New York . . 


46 


15 


216 


150 


92 


1 






6 


27 


1 


127 


St. Louis . . . 


12 


4 


301 


22 


2 










17 




19 


Pittsburg . . . 


15 


3 


274 


18 


18" 




1 


1 


3" 


8 


4 


35 


Grand Rapids 


9 


4 


69 


48 


50 








2 


1 




53 


Worcester . . 


30 


14 


30 


19.5 


4 








2 


24 


1 


31 


Newark .... 


9 


4 


67 


42 












60 




60 


Milwaukee . . 


15 


6 


134 


83 


23 


1 


5 




1 




2 


32 


Lancaster, Pa. 


7 


6 


56 


36 


9 










9 




18 


Cleveland . . . 


7 


6 


30.5 


15.3 


56 










4 




60 


Jersey City. . 


9 


8 


37.5 


22 


12 








1 


10 




23 


Elizabeth . . . 


9 


13 


30.3 


15.7 


13 










3 




16 


Reading .... 


9 


4 


56.5 


38 


9 










2 




11 


Kalamazoo . . 


6 


3 


30.5 


15 












19 




19 












304 


2 


6 


1 


15 


184 


8 


520 



Minutes used in compiling the above 
Chicago: 11/24/15; 2/16/16; 5/24/16. 
New York: 10/27/15; 12/8/15; 3/22/16. 
St. Louis: 4/13/15; 7/13/15; 10/12/15. 
Pittsburg: 6/23/14; 9/22/14; 10/20/14. 
Gr. Rapids: 6/7/15; 8/2/15; 10/4/15. 
Worcester: 6/1/15; 9/7/15; 11/2/15. 
Newark: 4/29/15; 7/29/15; 8/26/15. 



data: 
Milwaukee: 6/30/15; 9/7/15; 10/5/15. 
Lancaster: 1/6/16; 3/2/16; 5/4/16. 
Cleveland: 6/21/15; 8/30/lS; 10/25/15. 
Jersey City: 4/21/15; 6/16/15; 9/15/15. 
Elizabeth: 8/13/14; 12/10/14; 1/28/15. 
Reading: 5/19/14; 8/18/14; 11/17/14. 
Kalamazoo: 7/6/15; 9/7/15; 11/2/15. 



" Includes one referred to executive officer. 

'^ Eight of these are final adoption of committees reports after disposing of 
items seriatim. 

Objections may be raised that the number of pages devoted to 
committee reports is not fair measure of the relative importance 
attached to committee reports and recommendations. Discus- 
sions are not recorded while routine items frequently are. For 
that reason a crude measure as this must be discounted. But 
even allowing liberally for the preponderant proportion of space 
devoted to committee reports in such a city as Chicago, when we 
consider certain other pertinent factors, there appears to be good 
evidence that in this city at least, committee policy tends to be 
substituted for board policy. That the board in this city attempts 



58 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

to pass upon a large volume of business may be seen by reference 
to the minutes themselves. The fact that all committee proposals 
for three months can be disposed of vi^ithout amendment in six- 
teen recorded actions by this large board and in each case by unan- 
imous vote is further evidence that committee policy in Chicago 
tends to be substituted for board policy. A marked contrast is 
to be noted in the case of St. Louis, where committee reports oc- 
cupied only twenty-two out of a total of three hundred and one 
pages. St. Louis, as noted above, restricts its committees by limit- 
ing them to an advisory capacity. The significant reports are 
presented as the reports of executive officers and not as committee 
reports. 

Unfortunately a considerable number of actions are recorded 
only as "adopted." These are presumably those on which no roll 
call was taken. In many cases actions are recorded as "adopted" 
on matters of routine or which involve no expenditures. The 
small number of cases in which divisions, amendments or rejec- 
tions occurred may be seen from the table. Only in Milwaukee 
and Pittsburg do committee reports appear to be seriously ques- 
tioned. 

e. Summary on Committees 

As far as we have approached a solution of the committee 
problem through these committees it appears (1) that committee 
action may in the main take two general directions. It may be 
(a) chiefly administrative, either in the absence of a full corps 
of executive officers or irrespective of them and contrary to 
principles of good business administration ; or (b) chiefly advisory 
and supporting, affording the benefit of group judgment to execu- 
tive officers and placing at their service such business administra- 
tive ability as its members possess in order that all of the execu- 
tive or professional skill within the system may coordinate at a 
maxium of efficiency. Whether the latter position shall be taken 
will depend somewhat on the specific provisions of the rules in 
prescribing committee duties. It appears (2) that there is little 
agreement among boards as to what duties shall be assigned to 
these committees; (3) that there is little if any evidence from the 
findings with respect to committee duties of a conception among 
boards of relative importance of the duties which should claim 



The Board and its Duties 59 

the time and attention of committees. Finally it appears (4) 
that committee action may develop particularly among large 
boards into an arrangement for mere convenience wherein a com- 
mittee tends to become a separate entity for attending to a par- 
ticular phase of the board's own duties and whereby committee 
policy tends to be substituted for board policy. This was noted 
in the case of the building committee. The problem is then, to 
conserve whatever advantage there is to be had in committee ac- 
tion making for more efficient administration of the system. It 
is to conserve whatever business ability its members may bring to 
the assistance of executive officers in formulating and executing 
policies, without interfering with or preventing the full operation 
of the professional ability of the chief executive and his as- 
sistants. 

5. Summary 

The problem for boards of education as indicated by the data 
we have presented in this chapter is one of finding its own proper 
functions. It is one of finding what functions should be dele- 
gated to the professional chief executive and his assistants and 
which functions are most important for a lay board to perform 
and most deserving of its time and effort. 

The duties performed by lay boards in practice extend over a 
wide range. They undertake to act upon matters which are pro- 
fessional and administrative in character as well as upon matters 
which are of vital importance for a board of education to per- 
form. A large amount of work is attempted and an undue 
amount of time is frequently devoted to unimportant and ad- 
ministrative matters. As a result of such procedure there is a 
tendency to disregard the professional aspects of educational 
leadership. The reports demanded of the chief executive and his 
assistants are commonly not of the kind which enable a board to 
pass intelligently upon school policies. Few boards require as a 
basis for legislation that accurate, detailed, objective data shall be 
presented by executive officers. They neglect the opportunity to 
hold the executive officers responsible for results through the 
medium of adequate reports of the achievements of the school 
system. They frequently resort to committee procedure not so 
much from well considered necessity as from the facts : ( 1 ) that 



60 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

the board has not formed a clear conception (a) that administra- 
tive functions should be performed by the chief executive officer 
and his assistants and (b) that its own function is to provide the 
legislation necessary for the successful administration of the 
school system; (2) that the board fails to demand data adequate 
enough to enable it to pass upon school policies; and (3) that the 
membership of the board is too large. They commonly fail to 
prescribe definitely that the function of a committee is to serve 
in an advisory capacity to the chief executive and his assistants 
with the result that we find committees engaged in administrative 
matters and recommending policies which are allowed to become 
board policies without due consideration. 

The duties which in the opinion of 75 per cent of the 531 
competent judges are least important for a board to perform and 
which in the opinion of many judges should not be performed 
are : ( 1 ) visiting the schools, observing or investigating the ef- 
ficiency of instruction, (2) hearing communications on matters of 
administration or policy, and (3) acting as a court of appeal for 
teachers, supervisors and patrons. The duties which are among 
the most important for a board to perform have to do with such 
matters as (1) passing upon the annual budget prepared by the 
chief executive and his assistants, (2) debating and passing upon 
the recommendations of the chief executive for additional capital 
outlays and the means of financing them, (3) advising with the 
chief executive to afford him a group judgment on his recom- 
mendations for extensions or readjustments of the scope of edu- 
cational activities, (4) appointing teachers, principals and super- 
visors only upon nomination and recommendation of the chief 
executive. Its most important single duty is to select the chief 
executive officer and support him in the discharge of his duties 



CHAPTER II 

THE ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANIZATION 

The particular purpose of this chapter is to consider the pro- 
vision made by boards of education for centering authority and 
responsibihty in the hands of the chief executive, i.e., the superin- 
tendent, and his assistants. The principle of giving to the chief 
executive officer a wide range of authority is commonly accepted 
among careful students of administration as a cardinal principle 
of good administration. Our interest will be to see how far this 
principle is carried in school administration as indicated by the 
rules and regulations. Since this principle is not peculiar alone 
to school administration, attention will be given to administrative 
organization as provided by boards of directors of some success- 
ful business concerns and as provided in the rapidly developing 
city-manager type of commission government. The intent is to 
discover the lesson that successful administration in these fields 
holds for boards of education. A second principle, that of fixing 
responsibility in the chief executive, has been treated to some ex- 
tent in the preceding chapter. A third principle of administra- 
tion which may be borne in mind throughout the study maintains 
that new policies shall be proposed by the chief executive and his 
assistants. All of these principles are based upon the facts, (1) 
that successful performance of executive functions is a matter re- 
quiring professional training and skill, (2) that the public is inter- 
ested primarily in getting results, and (3) that having selected ex- 
ecutives possessed of adequate professional ability to perform the 
actual work of administration, any undue restriction which pre- 
vents the chief executive officer and his assistants from employing 
such professional knowledge is economic waste. With these prin- 
ciples of administration definitely before us we may attempt to an- 
swer a few specific problems. Does the authority given the super- 
intendent as the board's chief executive officer prevent him from 
being the real leader of the community in matters of education? 

61 



62 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

Must he depend upon the whims and inaccurate judgment of 
others to secure execution of poHcies which his professional judg- 
ment deems best for the community? Is he the actual head of 
the school system, or are there several distinct heads, and what 
are some effects of such arrangements ? It is interesting to know 
whether the chief executive is given power to control and direct 
the head of the business or other departments.* 

1. Need of Considering Administrative Organization 

To give the reader some conception of the need of considering 
the question of centralizing administrative organization let us 
consider for example, the matter of school buildings. Is the 
board of education which makes its building department inde- 
pendent of the educational department certain that buildings will 
be constructed to meet commonly accepted standards of health, 
safety, convenience and educational need? How does it know 
that new buildings will be adapted to the conception of education 
underlying the work of the school as revealed in the number and 
kind of activities to be undertaken, the subjects to be taught, the 
method and spirit of teaching, the general organization and ad- 
ministration of the schools and the system of which it is a part? ^ 
How does it know that adequate account is being taken both in 
the form and location of buildings, of the probable number of 
school children to be accommodated, that the location of each is 
such as will provide standard conditions of physical and social 
environment? Is it certain that each building is being so located 
and constructed as to provide standard lighting conditions for 
the children without danger of injury to their eyes? Does it 
know whether corridors and stairways will be standardized to 
meet the requirements of safety and convenience in movement of 
the children without waste of space; that service systems, such 

* In this study a system in which the superintendent is made the re- 
sponsible head of all departments, instruction, building, business, etc., the 
head through whom all departments are coordinated, will be designated 
as having a centralized or coordinated type of organization. A system 
having its different department heads independent of each other or prac- 
tically so, a system in which each department executive head is responsible 
directly to the board and not to the superintendent, will be spoken of as 
having a divided or uncoordinated form of administrative organization. 
The term decentralized may also be applied to this form. 

^ See brief on School Buildings by Gambrill, Theisen, and Woody, 
Dept. of Educational Administration, Teachers College (unpublished). 



The Administrative Organization 63 

as heating and ventilating, artificial lighting, water supply and 
toilet facilities, will be constructed to meet the requirements for 
comfort, convenience, health and study for all who are to be ac- 
commodated? Is it certain that class rooms will be placed with 
due regard for the educational activities to be served; that they 
will be of such size as will provide standard floor and air space 
for each child ; that they will be constructed with due regard for 
facilitating control of such matters as cloakrooms, for minimiz- 
ing dangers of distractions from noises ; that they will be finished 
in colors that facilitate proper lighting; that their permanent 
equipment will be of such quality and size and so arranged as to 
meet the needs of health and good instruction, e.g., placing black- 
boards within reach of the children ; that rooms for special activi- 
ties will be arranged with respect to the requirements of the ac- 
tivity to be undertaken whether it be auditorium, administrative 
offices, commercial rooms, drawing rooms, gymnasium, house- 
hold arts rooms, industrial arts rooms, laboratories, libraries, 
lunch rooms, music rooms, open air class rooms, science rooms or 
shops? Surely no one would deny that the building department 
exists for the purpose of satisfying the needs of the educational 
department. These are factors that a board may well consider 
when selecting and fixing the responsibility of its superintendent 
of buildings. They apply scarcely less to the voter who may be 
asked to cast his ballot for or against a city charter which would 
still further divorce the school building department from the 
educational department by placing the control of school buildings 
with other city departments as in Schenectady, or until recently 
in Boston. 

The board which divorces its business department from its edu- 
cational department, as do the boards in Cleveland, Boston, 
Indianapolis, and Terre Haute, may do well to consider the pos- 
sible effects of such separation. What assurance is there that 
standards for school supplies will be such as permit good teach- 
ing; that the quality and kind of paper for writing and drawing, 
the materials for manual, industrial and household arts, kinder- 
garten or laboratories, are such as will permit good teaching re- 
sults? The proper selection of such materials requires an under- 
standing of the educational activities for which they are intended, 
yet what is there to prevent the business agent in Boston or the 



64 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

business director in Terre Haute from seriously interfering with 
the selection of any kind of materials required by the educational 
department? If the superintendent in Boston desired that kinder- 
gartens be conducted according to modern theories of child learn- 
ing as opposed to the outgrown Froebelian ideas, what is there 
to prevent the business agent from refusing to permit the neces- 
sary change in the kind of materials except a special action by 
the board? If the "Director of Schools," as the business director 
in Cleveland is called, took steps to close summer play-grounds 
because he thought the children were breaking too many windows, 
the superintendent would have no authority to stop him. Such 
interference is not unknown among the cities of the study having 
a decentralized organization.^ The proposed Boston rules per- 
mit such independence as follows : 

"Requisitions for books, printing, postage, fuel and materials of every 
description required for use by any officer or in any school or department 
shall be subject to his^ approval. . . . He shall fill such requisitions as he 
shall approve within the limits of the appropriations made therefore." * 

The rules of Terre Haute provide that 

"He shall refuse to fill any requisition, if he deem the same unwise or 
unnecessary . . . and shall give his reason in writing for such refusal." ^ 

A striking instance of divided responsibility is found both in 
Indianapolis and Terre Haute in the matter of the budget. In 
neither of these cities does the board give to the superintendent 
any authority in the making of the budget. Both entrust this im- 
portant function to the business director. The rules of Indianap- 
olis read : 

"The director shall prepare and submit to the board not later than at its 
first regular meeting in August his estimates of the receipts and ex- 
penditures for the fiscal year to end on the 30th day of June following, 
with his recommendations as to the levy to be made for taxes." ® 

The rules of Terre Haute on this point specify as follows : 

2 For corroboration on this point see: "Report of a study of certain 
phases of the Public School System of Boston, Mass." (Published 1916.) 

3 Italics — author's. 

4 "Rules of the School Committee and Regulations of the Public 
Schools" (proposed), 1915. 

5 Manual, 1914, Art. HI, Sec. p. 

6 Indianapolis : Manual and Rules, 1911, Art. VI, Sec. 16. 



The Administrative Organization 65 

"He shall make a recommendation in writing on all matters brought to 
the board by his department and on all matters involving an expenditure 
of money except for salaries. Before the beginning of each fiscal year he 
shall prepare an estimate of expenses for all departments for the ensuing 
year, and he shall recommend the tax levy." ^ 

The proposed Boston rules entrench the business agent even 
more firmly. After prescribing the report of expenditures, etc., 
to be made, this statement is made: 

"He shall include in these reports such recommendations tending to a 
more economical expenditure of appropriations as he may deem ex- 
pedient." s 

"He shall consider and report upon any proposition relating to an ex- 
tension of or a change in the school system involving additional expense, 
or a contemplated expenditure for which provision has not been made in 
the annual appropriation order . . ." ^ 

What changes of any importance do not involve some expendi- 
ture? 

In Cleveland the director as far as any rule to the contrary is 
concerned is absolutely independent of any control by the 
superintendent.^" 

What more effective means could be used to remove the busi- 
ness director from the control of the superintendent than to give 
him such powers as do these cities in matters of the budget? 
What assurance have the boards of education in these cities that 
the latent professional skill paid for in the salary of the superin- 
tendent as chief executive will be given the opportunity to operate 
at its maxium ability ; that the skill which can direct expenditures 
so that they shall promote the best educational welfare of the 
children shall be utilized? It is quite plain that these boards are 
providing rules which make it unlikely that the professional prep- 
aration and training of their superintendent will be fully utilized. 

Let us consider briefly organization within the educational de- 
partment for cities that do not provide a single responsible head. 
If the superintendent is not made the single responsible head, as 
he is not in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, or Baltimore, who is 

7 op. cit.. Art. in. Sec. 1. 

8 Op. cit., Chap. V, Sec. 98. 

9 Op. cit., Chap. V, Sec. 101. 

1° Cleveland : Rules Governing the Board of Education, 1915. 



66 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

to be held responsible for the success of the system? In each of 
these cities a board of superintendents is found. Odd as it may 
seem, even though the superintendent may have control over each 
assistant superintendent as an individual, the board of superin- 
tendents, composed of the assistant superintendents and the 
superintendent, may out vote and overrule him. The rules of 
Baltimore provide: 

"Wherever the superintendent of public instruction and his assistants 
are in doubt what course to pursue, they shall ask instructions from the 
school commissioners, to whom they may present a majority and a minority 
report, and the decision of the board of school commissioners shall be 
final. He shall have the right subject to the approval of the majority of 
the board of superintendents to suspend any teacher." ^^ 

The proposed Boston rules which according to the recent sur- 
vey report of Boston ^^ represent present practice in that city 
read as follows : 

"The superintendent shall be the executive officer of the board in all 
matters relating to instruction and discipline in the schools. . . . He shall 
be chairman of the board of superintendents, and shall assign to each as- 
sistant superintendent such duties as he may deem best, and may delegate 
to or recall from any one or more assistant superintendents any part of 
his authority except such as relates to the appointment, reappointment, 
assignment, promotion, transfer, suspension, or removal of teachers and 
members of the supervising staff; to the approval of plans of school build- 
ings ; and to recommendations to the board, or other relations with it." i' 

But note how the seeming authority of the superintendent is 
annulled even in the department of instruction : 

"The board of superintendents shall give written opinions on any 
question when so required by the superintendent, the board, or any sub- 
committee thereof ; and may present to the board recommendations on its 
own initiative. The board of superintendents shall approve books of ref- 
erence and educational material used in the schools, except dictionaries, 
cyclopedias and atlases, in accordance with the regulations. The board 
of superintendents shall conduct examinations of candidates for certificates 
for qualification as teachers . . . and prepare and adopt the questions to 
be used at such examinations." ^^ 

11 Baltimore : Rules of the Board of School Commissioners, 1913. 

12 Boston : Report of a Study of Certain Phases of the Public School 
System, 1916. 

13 Rules of the School Committee and Regulations of the Public Schools 
(proposed), 1915, Chap. Ill, Sec. 55, 57. 

14/&IJ., IV, Sec. 66, 68, 70. 



The Administrative Organization 67 

Since no permanent appointments of teachers or supervisors 
can be made except from the three highest on the eligible list will- 
ing to accept ^^ the board of superintendents has control of the ap- 
pointment of teachers. 

The by-laws of Philadelphia provide: 

"The board of superintendents shall recommend to the board of 
public education, or to the proper committee : (a) Changes in the grad- 
ing of schools, (b) The adoption and modifications of courses of study. 

"The board of superintendents shall recommend to the board of public 
education, or to the proper committee, the location of new school build- 
ings, the repairs to and enlargement of present buildings, and the change 
of teachers from one grade to another in schools where such changes 
would be of advantage. 

"The board of superintendents shall conduct the examination of can- 
didates for the various teachers' certificates (other than those granted 
to graduates of the normal school and the School of Pedagogy), pro- 
vided for by the board of public education, and shall prepare the eligible 
lists of candidates to be kept in the superintendent's office." ^^ 

In New York the authority of the board of superintendents is 
indicated by the following: 

"Associate city superintendents shall be assigned to duty by the city 
superintendent, and shall perform such duties as he may direct. . . . Sub- 
ject to the approval of the board of education, the board of superin- 
tendents shall make rules and regulations for the admission of pupils to 
the schools, for their promotion and graduation, and for their transfer 
from one school to another. 

"The board of superintendents shall recommend to the board of edu- 
cation, when necessary or advisable, text-books, apparatus and other 
scholastic supplies, and shall report to the board of education in reference 
to changes in the grades of schools or classes, and in reference to the 
adoption or modification of courses of study. 

"The board of superintendents shall, from time to time, issue syllabuses 
in the various branches taught, which shall be regarded as the minimum 
amount of work required in such branches." i'' 

Unfortunately certain powers are conferred upon the board 
of superintendents by the city charter,^^ 

^^Ibid., IV, Sec. 87. 

16 Philadelphia : Handbook, The Board of Education, 1914, containing 
By-Laws, 1911, III, Sec. 30, 31, 33. 

1^ New York: Manual of the Board of Education, Sec. 40. 

18 New York : Educational Chapter of the Revised New York City Char- 
ter, Sec. 1090. 



68 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

"Principals, branch principals, heads of departments, teachers, assistants 
and all other members of the teaching staff, shall be appointed by the 
board of education on the nomination of the board of superintendents 
. . . Teachers and principals may be promoted or transferred from one 
school to any other school within the city by the board of superintendents, 
subject to the approval of the board of education . . ." 

With a board of superintendents independent of and overruling 
the superintendent we have the district paying twice for one re- 
sult. It pays the superintendent a salary for professional ser- 
vice presumably to fill the position of chief executive and at the 
same time it is devoting part of the salary paid to assistant 
superintendents to the payment of their services in performing 
functions for which the superintendent is already being paid. It 
may be argued that their salary is for service as assistant superin- 
tendents but nevertheless a part of their time is devoted to ser- 
vice as members of the board of superintendents and a part of 
their salaries must be considered as paying for services as mem- 
bers of this board. 

Again, if the nomination of the supervisors, principals, and 
teachers, or such matters as the initiative in changes of text- 
books, courses of study, or the kind of supplies which shall make 
them conform more nearly to the requirements of the educational 
ideals of the school, do not rest with the chief executive, can he 
be held responsible for the success of the system? Is the board 
making full use of his services? Certainly not. True, the plac- 
ing of all of the responsibilities so far enumerated upon the super- 
intendent does not insure the best results in every instance. But 
in the last analysis, whether just or unjust, the community looks 
to its superintendent of schools as the one responsible for the edu- 
cational welfare of its children. This emphasizes all the more 
and helps to explain the fact that the selection of the superin- 
tendent is considered by competent judges as a board's most im- 
portant duty. 

2. Types of Administrative Organization 

The administrative organization of the cities of this study may 
be divided into types. At one extreme we have a completely 
centralized or coordinated organization represented by Minne- 



The Administrative Organization 



69 



apolis, as shown in Chart I ^^ and at the other extreme a 
thoroughly divided or uncoordinated organization represented by 
Boston, Chart II. Between these extremes we find a group of 
cities whose organization is centraHzed only in certain features. 
The two charts may be considered as portraying fairly typical 
forms of organization found among the one hundred cities whose 
rules and regulations were examined. It may be noted, however. 



3 



g^ 




AoMnijTiMTtve- O^CAMZATion 
Of Tut. 



Chart I 
that Boston is lacking in one respect of being truly typical in that 
the board has no committees. 

Before considering school administrative organization in detail 
it may be well to call attention again to the administrative 
principles mentioned in the early part of this chapter: 

1. That the chief executive officer (referring throughout 
this study to the superintendent) should be given a wide 
range of authority over all departments of the system. 

13 In all charts used in this study, slant and vertical lines indicate con- 
trol emanating from the higher position. Horizontal lines indicate a 
cooperative relation. 



70 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 




The Administrative Organisation 71 

2. That responsibility for results should be fixed in the 
chief executive. 

3. That the initiative in new policies shall come from the 
chief executive and his assistants. 

Except only in so far as business organizations and city govern- 
ment are treated in this chapter only the first will be treated ex- 
tensively here. This first principle is a thesis of all careful 
students of administration. It asserts that the chief executive 
should have control and direction over the heads of departments 
in their duties and that his approval shall be necessary in all im- 
portant matters. The student therefore may approach a study 
of the administrative organization of any system with such ques- 
tions as these : "What authority has the chief executive ? What 
control has he over other officers and employees of the system? 
Over what aspects of their work has he control?" Not all of 
this can be shown on a simple diagram of control relations, nor 
can organization charts be shown for all of the cities. Accord- 
ingly, the one hundred cities whose rules and regulations were ex- 
amined are placed in groups, each city being placed in that group 
to which its organization most closely corresponds, Table XL A 
number of the cities are comparatively small cities that have not 
felt the need of providing several departments with separate 
heads for each. In a few cases the data were not sufficient to 
warrant classification. The line of demarcation between groups 
cannot always be sharply drawn. With these considerations we 
may turn our attention to the cities classified in Table XL 

Minneapolis, of the first group, shown diagrammatically in 
Chart I, as previously stated has complete centralization or co- 
ordination of departments through the chief executive. The 
head of the business department is made assistant superintendent 
in charge of business afifairs. The assistant secretary who per- 
forms the real duties of clerk or secretary is made secretary to 
the superintendent and is placed under the superintendent's di- 
rection. The departments of attendance and hygiene are likewise 
under his direction. Since the present study was undertaken, an- 
other large city, Denver,^- has adopted this type of organization 
and is placed in the first group. Of the remaining cities in this 
group, seven, namely: Brookline, Mass., Lockport, N. Y., 

22 Denver : By-Laws adopted Jan. 12, 1916. 



72 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 



TABLE XI 
Form of Organization 



Centralized 

or 
Coordinated 

Norwalk, Conn. 
Waltham, Mass. 
Minneapolis 
Denver 

Evansville, Ind. 
Brookline, Mass. 
Joliet, 111. 
Lockport, N. Y.2» 
Charleston, S. C.^" 
Holyoke, Mass.^" 
Lawrence, Mass.^" 
Fremont, Nebr. 
Winchester, Mass.^" 
Newburyp't, Mass.^" 



Centralized 
in Part 



New Orleans 
Bridgeport, Conn. 
Fort Worth 
Moline, 111. 
Topeka ^ 
Beverley, Mass. 
Waterbury, Conn. 
Philadelphia 
Joplin, Mo. 
Worcester, Mass. 
Manchester, N. H. 



Simple 
Organization 



Divided 

or 

Uncoordinated 

Chester, Pa. 

Cleveland 

Akron, Ohio 

New York 

Salt Lake City 

Grand Rapids, Mich. 

St. Louis 

Yonkers, N. Y. 

Detroit 

Rochester 

Fall River, Mass. 

Syracuse 

Newton, Mass. 

Baltimore 

New Haven 

Boston 

Covington, Ky. 

Louisville 

San Francisco 

Cedar Rapids, la. 

St. Joseph, Mo. 

New Brunswick, N.J. 

Elgin, 111. 

Spokane 

Chicago 

Providence 

Sioux City 

Pawtucket, R. I. 

Portland, Ore. 

Terre Haute 

Richmond, Va. 

Columbus, Ohio 

Omaha 

Lincoln, Nebr. 

Indianapolis 

Brockton, Mass. 

Harrisburg 

Schenectady 

Everett, Wash. 

Oakland, Cal. 

Boulder, Colo. 

Wichita 

Johnstown, Pa. 

Charlotte, N. C. 

Columbia, S. C. 

Racine, Wis. 

Newport, Ky. 

Kansas City, Mo. 

Middleton, N. Y. 

*" Superintendent is also secretary or clerk. 

^^ Cooperative relation only between superintendent of buildings and superin- 
tendent. 



Wausau, Wis. 
Laramie, Wyo. 
Lead, S. D. 
Winston Salem, N.C. 
Cape Girardeau 
Greeley, Colo. 
Calumet, Mich. 
Lebanon, Pa. 
Central Falls, R. I. 
Westport, Mass. 
Pine Bluffs, Ark. 
Fort Smith, Ark. 
Montgomery, Ala. 
Freeport, N. Y. 
Fargo, N. D. 
Milton, Mass. 
West Point, Nebr. 
Pierce, Nebr. 
Cortland, N. Y. 
Portland, Me. 



Insufficient data 

Houston 
Nashville 
Seattle 

Pittsfield, Mass. 
Wakefield, Mass. 



The Administrative Organization 73 

Holyoke, Mass., Lawrence, Mass., Newburyport, Mass., Waltham, 
Mass., Winchester, Mass., make the superintendent clerk or 
secretary of the board in addition to his usual duties. In Holyoke 
this additional duty is placed upon him by charter provision. 
Such arrangement is evidently facilitated by the Massachusetts 
State Law : 

"The superintendent . . . shall assist the school committee in keeping 
its records and accounts, and in making such reports required by law." ^3 

That an arrangement whereby the superintendent performs 
both functions is not unusual among smaller cities may be seen 
from Deifenbaugh's study.^* He reports 119 cities out of 799 
as making such provision. 

This double function of the superintendent in the cities just 
noted suggests a matter of more than passing interest which may 
be inserted parenthetically at this point. In smaller cities the 
work commonly assigned to separate departments is frequently 
given over to committees of the board of education or, again, a 
member of the board fills the position of secretary. Placing be- 
side this condition the arrangement noted above where the 
superintendent fills both the position of superintendent and of 
secretary or clerk, we may see what is possibly the evolutionary 
stages of both the centralized and the divided or uncoordinated 
forms of administrative organization. A logical succession to 
administration of a department by a committee of the board, as 
in the case of buildings, is a salaried executive officer in charge 
of the department, independent of the superintendent. Or again, 
if a member of the board fills the office of secretary, as the amount 
of work to be done develops, a salaried official, not a member of 
the board, may be placed in charge of the business affairs of the 
board. He may or may not be independent of the superintendent. 
On the other hand, where the superintendent serves in the 
capacity of more than one officer, the next step is to provide him 
with an assistant who shall be under his direction. For illustra- 
tions of such developmental stages see the rules and regulations 
of such cities as Fort Worth, Texas, Joplin, Mo., Bridgeport and 

23 Massachusetts : Chap. 444, Acts 1911, Sec. 1, quoted in Revised Laws 
Relating to Public Instruction, 1915, p. ZZ. 

24 Deffenbaugh : School Administration in the Smaller Cities, Bur. of 
Edu. Bui. 44, 1915, p. 42. 



74 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

Norwalk, Conn. If our analysis of the probable lines of develop- 
ment be correct, the lesson to be drawn is clear. Undoubtedly- 
much of the lack of coordinated or centralized authority and re- 
sponsibility that has developed in some cities need not be re- 
peated in others that are now in the developmental stage. If 
superintendents in these growing cities be on the alert to lead and 
urge development such as will definitely lay a foundation for 
future centralized organization rather than be content to let 
matters drift, it can be averted. 

Now if the source of the divided or uncoordinated form of 
organization can be traced to the stage in the development of the 
administrative control of a school system where members of the 
board serve in the capacity of executive officers of the schools an 
important question arises. Is it necessary that the board of edu- 
cation have a president and a secretary of its own body? Why 
not have the superintendent of schools, who is the chief executive 
officer employed to execute the policies of the board, perform the 
duties usually assigned to a president? His business assistant 
could serve as secretary. The question is one to be solved by 
future investigators in the field of administration. It will be 
seen later from the study made of the administrative organization 
of the Pennsylvania Railroad system that the chief executive of- 
ficer, i.e., the president of the road, is president of the board of 
directors. This magnificent organization does not provide one 
head for the road and another for its board of directors. The 
same is true of the New York Telephone Company and of the 
American Telephone and Telegraph Company. Yet even though 
this is true in large and successful business organizations it is 
not so in school administration. We have in the person of the 
superintendent a chief executive for the head of the school system 
and at the same time the board of education elects one of its 
own number to preside over its own deliberations. Conserva- 
tive administrators should be required to justify an arrangement 
which diflfers so materially from that found in the field of busi- 
ness. 

In the Pennsylvania System, the board of directors advise 
with their president to arrive at a concensus judgment as to the 
policies to be followed. The chief executive is thus the real 
leader of his board of directors. Nothing found in the field 



The Administrative Organisation 75 

covered by this study would suggest that an organization, whereby 
the superintendent as chief executive, could not fill the position 
of president of the board of education in addition to his ordinary 
duties. However, the solution of the problem is not ours to 
reach. Our purpose is merely to direct attention to it. 

Let us return to the matter of classification of cities accord- 
ing to form of organization. That the reason for placing cer- 
tain cities in the class "Centralized in Part" may be understood, 
we will indicate briefly the particular respects in which these cities 
have a centralized or coordinated form of organization. Bear in 
mind that our chief interest here is to see whether the principle 
of giving to the chief executive a wide range of authority is ob- 
served. It must be remembered that as previously stated no 
hard and fast division lines between the groups can well be made 
and that in this classification we are considering only centraliza- 
tion with respect to the main departments. The departments 
of attendance and medical inspection will be treated separately. 
Table XII gives the cities in which the rules of the board give the 
superintendent control or direction over the duties of the other 
executive officers indicated, those in which he is given part con- 
trol and those in which he is given very little or no control over 
their duties. 

The terms "Business Director" and "Superintendent of Build- 
ings" are used uniformly here, though in practice various terms 
are used to designate the officers performing these functions. 
All numbers except in total columns are key numbers to cities in 
Table I. Reading down the columns will give some idea of the 
relative numbers of each. It should be noted that in some of the 
cities placed in the "no control" section the superintendent does 
have some control in certain minor matters, but the amount and 
importance of such control was not deemed sufficient to warrant 
placing them in the "part control" section. These may be desig- 
nated "border-line cases." Cities in which the superintendent is 
both superintendent and secretary or clerk are placed in the "con- 
trol" section for the reason that the actual secretarial work is not 
usually done by the superintendent himself but by an assistant 
under his immediate supervision and direction. 

In Table XI of the cities classed as having a "partly central- 
ized" or "coordinated organization," i.e., where the superintendent 



76 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 



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The Administrative Organization 77 

has control and direction over the heads of some of the depart- 
ments at least, or over their important duties, we may note some 
of the respects in which he has control. In New Orleans, the 
inspector of buildings "shall receive and carry out any instruc- 
tions given by the superintendent regarding any matters pertain- 
ing to the health and comfort of teachers and pupils and improve- 
ment of instruction." ^^ This may seem insufficient, but with a 
strict interpretation of all that this implies it will be seen that his 
control is not unimportant. 

In Bridgeport the agent of the board (superintendent of build- 
ings), in addition to prescribed duties, must perform "such other 
duties as may be required of him by the superintendent." ^^ He 
must report back his disposition of affairs submitted to him. In 
case of "inefficiency or neglect of duty on the part of janitors" 
he reports "to the superintendent or to the committee on school- 
houses." Topeka ^^ requires that the superintendent of buildings 
perform his duties "in consultation with the superintendent of 
schools" — a rather lukewarm provision but nevertheless a step 
toward coordination of departments. Fort Worth requires the 
clerk of the school board, in addition to performing other duties, 
to "do such clerical work as may be requested by the . . . 
superintendent of schools." *° Moline, Illinois," requires the 
supervisor of janitors and buildings "to perform such other duties 
as the superintendent may designate." In Beverley, Mass., the 
board has prescribed in clear-cut fashion, "There shall be a school- 
house custodian who under the superintendent of schools, shall be 
the executive officer of the board in all matters relating to the 
care and custody of land and of buildings. . . . " *^ The Rules 
and Regulations of Waterbury specifically state that: "The in- 
spector of school buildings shall act under the direction and con- 
trol of the superintendent of schools." ^^ Philadelphia, forced 
by state law applying to school districts of the first class, requires 
that the superintendent of buildings submit "all plans for con- 
struction of new buildings or for additions and repairs to old 

3'' Rules and Regulations of the Public Schools, Art. IX, Sec. 7. 

38 Rules of the Board of Education, 1915, Chap. II, Art. VI. 

39 Rules and Regulations, 1914, Sec. 49. 

40 Rules and Regulations (in 1913 Report), Art. 1. 

41 Rules, Chap. II, Sec. 4. 

42 Rules of Procedure, 1912, Chap. IV. 

43 Rules and Regulations, 1914, Chap. VIII. 



78 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

buildings ... to the superintendent of schools for criticism of 
that official." *^ 

The board of education at Joplin, Mo., makes this provision : 

"The supervisor of buildings and grounds shall, under the direction of 
the superintendent, devote his entire time to the care of the property of 
the school district, and such other duties as may be assigned him." *5 

Worcester does not give the superintendent sole direction over 
the inspector of schoolhouses : 

"It shall be the duty of the inspector to exercise a general supervision of 
the schoolhouses under the direction of the committee on schoolhouses, 
the committee on high schools and the superintendent, or as directed 
by the committee." *^ 

Manchester, N. H., gives the superintendent "general super- 
vision . . . of all tTie employees of the school board." " In 
reply to a letter of inquiry as to whether this is intended to in- 
clude the clerk and the schoolhouse agent the superintendent re- 
plied that he had control over the schoolhouse agent but not over 
the clerk. 

The quotations just given from the rules of these cities show 
that in each of the cities classed as having an organization 
"Centralized in Part" the superintendent has control in some im- 
portant respects over at least one of the other executive officers 
of the system. The number of cities in which even this much 
authority is given to the chief executive is indeed small. When 
we compare the number of cities in the "Centralized" or "Central- 
ized in Part" groups with those in the "Divided or Uncoordinated" 
group, we see that much remains to be accomplished in the way 
of centralizing school administrative organization. That so much 
remains to be done, that school organization is lagging far behind 
progressive business organization, may be due to the timidity of 
boards in granting authority to their chief executive. Competi- 
tion has not yet been keenly felt in education as it has in business. 
This may account in part for the conservative attitude of boards 
of education as compared with the attitude of boards of directors 
in business to the question of giving to the chief executive a wide 

**0p. cit.. IV, Sec. 2. 

*5 Rules and Regulations (in 1915 Report), Sec. VIII. 

« Rules of the School Committee, 1913, Chap. IV. 

*T Rules of the School Committee, 1915, Chap. VIII, Sec. 1. 



The Administrative Organisation 79 

range of authority. It may be that the superintendent's lack of 
power in many cases is due to his own timidity or lack of fore- 
sight in demanding, as a condition to his acceptance of the position 
of superintendent, that he be made chief executive in fact as well 
as in name and that the professional nature of his position be 
recognized. Superintendents who accept a position without the 
guarantee of any effective control over other executives of the 
system do so quite probably for one of four reasons: (1) they 
may do so blindly, not realizing the grave consequences that may 
follow; (2) they may willingly acquiesce in becoming one of 
several executive heads; (3) they may fail to demand that the 
professional nature of the position of chief executive be recog- 
nized for fear of not being elected to the position to which they 
aspire; (4) they may depend upon the strength of their own per- 
sonality to dominate the situation. It is quite possible that all of 
these factors are influential in restricting the progress of central- 
ized school administration. Whatever the cause, the results 
found are sufficient to indict most of the boards in the cities of 
the study on the charge of failure to recognize adequately the 
professional aspects of educational leadership. 

It will be argued by some that even though the superintendent 
has no authority given him over other executive officers by rule, 
he does as a matter of fact exercise control in practice. While 
this was found to be true in some of the cities visited, notably 
Lincoln, East Orange, Kansas City, Mo., and Schenectady, it is by 
no means assured. In Boston *^ and Cleveland,^^ where ex- 
haustive inquiries have been made, it does not occur. The rules 
are to be looked upon as a form of contract made between the 
board and its officers and employees. In fact, the board of edu- 
cation in Cleveland goes so far as to specify in its rules that: 
"Such rules and regulations shall be deemed a part of the 
contract of employment of such officers, appointees and em- 
ployees. . . ." ^° There is no doubt of a board's intent in such 
a case. In any event, it is a hazardous undertaking to trust that 
past rules will be laid aside. 

*8 Boston : Report of a Study of Certain Phases of the Public School 
System, 1916. 

*9 Cleveland : Educ. Survey — School Organization and Administration, 
Chap. III. 

^0 Rules Governing the Board of Education, 1915, p. 8. 



80 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

We may further analyze administrative organization by ex- 
amining the distribution of control with respect to such depart- 
ments as that of attendance and medical inspection. Table XII 
gives also the distribution of control for the departments of com- 
pulsory attendance and medical inspection. It will be seen that 
the prevailing practice is to give the chief executive either part or 
entire control and direction over the attendance department. The 
common practice with respect to medical inspection is to place 
this feature of educational oversight under the direction of the 
chief executive officer. Since the main purpose of medical inspec- 
tion is to indicate possible means of preserving or of improving the 
physical well being of the children in order that they may be phys- 
ically fit to take full advantage of their educational opportunity, it 
would seem only fair that such boards as Cleveland, which makes 
this department independent of the educational department, should 
be asked to justify such arrangement. The Cleveland Rules read : 

"The chief supervisor shall have charge of and be responsible for, sub- 
ject to the director of schools," (i.e., business director) "the work of the 
Department of Medical Inspection." ^i 

There is no evident reason why medical inspection having to 
do with physical welfare, a matter fundamental to educational 
results and depending for its own efficiency upon cooperation 
with the educational department, should be made independent of 
it. If medical inspection exists for making possible better educa- 
tional results, is it not a waste of money to provide any form 
of administrative organization which hinders the most efficient 
use of the money spent for teaching and supervision? A busi- 
ness director is not expected to possess professional knowledge 
of child nature and educational needs. In Cleveland the "Director 
of Schools" nominates to the board for appointment, medical 
inspectors, nurses and a "Supervisor of Lunch Rooms." ^^ Is 
the board of education in Cleveland certain that a business direc- 
tor will nominate persons who are as well quahfied as would 
a superintendent and his assistants trained in the fields of edu- 
cational psychology and sociology, and teaching method? Why 
allow this professional skill represented in an educational staff 

51. Op. cit., p. 80. 
"Minutes, Sept. 13, 1915. 



The Administrative Organisation 81 

to be wasted in disuse? It is a clear-cut case of violation of the 
principle of giving proper authority to the superintendent as chief 
executive.^^ 

3. Administrative Organization in Other Fields 

Boards of education, loath to adopt a set of rules and regula- 
tions which centers authority and direction in administrative 
matters in the chief executive, which expects him to initiate new 
policies and which places upon him the responsibility for results, 
may profit by an examination of the administrative organization 
in the field of business or in the city manager type of commission 
government. They will find there the three principles of good 
administration referred to above actively employed. With a 
view to finding what provision is made for the operation of ad- 
ministrative principles which are applicable both to business 
organization and to school organization, some attention was de- 
voted to a study of a number of business concerns of recognized 
success. For the same purpose the city manager type of com- 
mission government was selected for consideration. These 
studies were made through an examination of by-laws or rules 
and regulations of boards of directors, city charters, charts of 
administrative organization, conferences with executive officers 
of business concerns and correspondence. 

a. Organisation in Business 

The following concerns, all of which were later found to have 
a centralized or coordinated form of administrative organization 
were considered: 

Pennsylvania Railroad Company. 

New York Telephone Company. 

American Telephone and Telegraph Company. 

New York Central Railroad Company. 

John Wanamaker, New York Store. 

Metropolitian Life Insurance Company. 

R. H. Macy and Company, Department Store. 

Park and Tilford Stores. 

^3 It may be noted that the board in Cleveland has gone so far astray 
that it fails to recognize that the educational department is more impor- 
tant than the business department. It designates its business director as 
the "thief executive." 



82 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

Chart III gives in some detail the administrative organization 
of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. It will be seen at a 
glance that this eminently successful railroad has a thoroughly 
centralized or coordinated type of organization. Not only has 
this immense system such a form of organization but, according 
to a statement made to the writer by the secretary, it has had this 
form since 1853. In this system each department is centralized 
within itself and all departments are directly under the control 
of the president as chief executive. Each ofificer beginning with 
the president, it may be noted, has immediate control of those 
directly below him. Each vice-president has supervision over 
his department and through him all nominations for subordinate 
positions must be made. The vice-president in charge of operat- 
ing, for example, has control over the general manager. The 
general manager in turn has immediate direction over the general 
superintendents. The general superintendents again exercise con- 
trol over the division superintendents, the division superintendents 
over the train masters and they in turn over conductors and loco- 
motive engineers. Thus we have a direct chain of control from 
chief executive down to conductors and engineers. To the exec- 
utive officers is entrusted the direction of the men who hold in 
their hands the lives of the thousands who travel, without a sug- 
gestion of interference on the part of the board of directors. 
Such distribution of control among railroads is not peculiar to the 
Pennsylvania alone. This may be seen from the published chart 
of the operating department of the New York Central and Hud- 
son River Railroad Company " (now New York Central Railroad 
Company). From Chart IV we may see similar facts of control 
and direction for the New York Telephone Company. 

Possibly not many of us would care to ride on trains, the direc- 
tion of whose crews was subject to whimsical interference from 
the board of directors or the members of which were selected by 
the board of directors. This would be particularly true if ques- 
tions of political expediency or personal friendship helped to de- 
termine the selection. Scarcely less, possibly, would we care to 
have telephone service in any modern American city installed and 

5* New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Company: Organi- 
zation of the Operating Department, 1908. "No copy of this Organiza- 
tion has been issued since the date given" — letter from the Secretary of 
the New York Central to the writer, April 17, 1916. 



The Administrative Organization 



83 



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84 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

operated by persons selected and directed by the board of di- 
rectors. 

However intolerable such procedure would seem in railroad or 
telephone management, an analogous procedure in school ad- 
ministration does not seem intolerable to all boards of education. 
Possibly it requires a matter of life and death to awaken some 
school board members to the seriousness of the situation. Never- 
theless boards of education that choose to interfere with the chief 
executive's control over his assistants need to consider that they 
are controlling in considerable measure the destinies of thousands 
of children. 

Let us see more in detail how our principles of administrative 
organization are provided, either as found in rules and regula- 
tions or otherwise. We may consider first what provisions are 
made for giving to the chief executive large powers in administra- 
tive matters. Does the board of directors in the concerns we 
have considered grant to the chief executive and his assistants a 
wide scope of authority in executive matters? Does it give to its 
professionally or technically trained leaders the freedom that per- 
mits these officers to use their skill and judgment? Does it per- 
mit them to be the judges in matters where their judgment should 
be most accurate, such as in the selection of subordinates and as- 
sistants ? 

(1) The Authority Granted the Chief Executive and His As- 
sistants. We may begin with department stores. The organiza- 
tion of the John Wanamaker Stores may be taken as an illustra- 
tion of administrative organization among such business con- 
cerns. The attitude of this firm toward its professional leaders 
is expressed in the following: 

"The architect and executive who design and direct and yet strive to do 
the bricklaying will advance not far and quickly wear out. One who has 
the faculty for right selection of responsible subordinates needs also 
that wise sense of justice and appreciation which accords unstinted scope 
of action and generous recognition of results. The proverbial reluctance 
to allow those to enter the water whom we would have swim, has given 
short measure to many a success. A good executive finds, develops and 
leans upon those who can carry forward for him the increasing divisions 
of his single great work . . ." ^^ 

55 Wanamaker, John : editorial in Business Management, p. 8, A. W. 
Shaw Publishing Company. 



The Administrative Organization 85 

In this firm the general manager is the executive head. All 
departments center in him. Nominations of subordinates are 
made through him and must be acceptable to him.^^ 

The essential organization of the New York Telephone Com- 
pany may be seen in Chart IV. Control is centered in the presi- 
dent as chief executive officer. Nominations for subordinate 
positions are made through the vice-president. Officials of dif- 
ferent grades have powers of appointment and fixing of salaries 
within prescribed limits. Within sub-departments appointments 
at salaries not over twenty-five to thirty dollars per week need 
not be approved by the board of directors. Different maxima are 
fixed for different grades of positions. Such liberty in the field 
of school administration is practically unheard of. 

In the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company we find authority 
centralized in the president. He is not only the executive head 
of the company but as in case of the Pennsylvania Railroad and 
New York Telephone Companies he is president of the board of 
directors as well. The powers of the chief executive and his as- 
sistants may be judged from the following: 

"It shall be the duty of the president to exercise a supervision and 
superintendence over all the business and affairs of the company. . . . 
It shall be the duty of the vice-president to consult and advise with 
the president, whenever requested . . . and act as secretary to the board; 
to assist the president in the discharge of his duties, whenever requested 
. . . and in concurrence with the president to have general oversight of 
all the business and affairs of the company. The duties of the other 
vice-presidents shall be such as shall be designated by the president, who 
shall keep the board advised thereof . . . The treasurer shall make reg- 
ular reports as required to the president. . . . All . . . duties shall be in 
connection with and under the direction and supervision of the president. 
. . . The duties of the auditor shall be such as may be designated by the 
president, vice-president or treasurer. It shall be the duty of the sec- 
retary to appoint and have charge and supervision of that part of the 
clerical force of the industrial department which receives applications 
and prepares policies for issue . . . and to perform such other duties as 
may be required by the president. ... It shall be the duty of the 
comptroller to have, under the direction of the president and the super- 
vision of the treasurer, charge of the real estate belonging to the com- 
pany and of the company's investments in bonds and mortgages ; to have 

5^ Statement made by the Assistant General Manager to the writer, 
June 8. 1916. 



86 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 




The Administrative Organisation 87 

charge of the home office properties of the company. . . . The comp- 
troller shall perform such other duties as may be designated by the 
president or vice-president. ... It shall be the duty of the medical di- 
rectors to examine applicants . . . when requested by an officer of the 
company, and to make in each case a report thereof to the officers of 
the company; ... to appoint, remove, and prescribe the territories of 
the field medical examiners and fix their fees. ... It shall be the duty of 
the assistant medical directors to assist the medical directors . . . and 
to perform such other duties as may be required by the medical directors 
or by the president . . ." ^'^ 

We have witnessed the fact that the principle of allowing the 
chief executive and his assistants a wide scope of authority in 
executive matters is observed in the three business enterprises 
just considered. It is evident that the directors desire that the 
professional ability of its expert leaders shall be unrestricted in 
matters of execution. We may now turn our attention to rail- 
roads. There we find what is in some respects even greater con- 
sideration for the expert abilities of its leaders. Executive of- 
ficers who are elected because of expert ability are not restricted 
in the use of that ability for which the directors are paying, 
through any lack of coordination. Only the operating depart- 
ment of the New York Central was considered in detail. The 
powers conferred upon the head of this department may be seen 
from the following : 

"The vice-president and general manager shall have charge of the 
operations of the transportation, engineering, maintenance of way and 
equipment departments. 

He shall nominate officers for the heads of his department subject to 
confirmation by the senior vice-president. 

He may authorise additions to forces in his department and may at 
any time direct the discharge of any employee therein, where the inter- 
ests of the Company seem to require it. . . . 

He shall perform such other duties as may be assigned to him by the 
senior vice-president, the president or the board." ^^ 

"The assistant general manager (of transportation) shall, under the 
direction of the vice-president and general manager . . . nominate of- 
ficers and sub-officers for all positions in his department." ^^ 

"The general superintendents . . . shall recommend to the assistant 

^7 Metropolitan Life Insurance Company: By-Laws, 1915, Sec. 15-22. 
58 New York Central and Hudson R. R. Co. : Organization of the Oper- 
ating Department, 1908, pp. 5-7. 
69 Ibid., p. 12. 



88 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

general manager (of transportation) the proper persons for the various 

offices and positions in their respective districts." ^^ 

The provisions made by the board of directors of the Pennsyl- 
vania are stated in a manner which leaves no doubt as to their 
interpretation with respect to the powers of executive officers : 

"The president shall have general supervision and direction of all de- 
partments of the Company's service and be assisted in the performance of 
his executive duties by the vice-presidents." ^^ 

"All the officers named in this organization, except those otherwise pro- 
vided for, (secretary, treasurer, vice-presidents), shall be appointed by 
the president subject to confirmation by the board, and hold office at the 
pleasure of the board and subject to the right of removal herein pre- 
scribed." ^2 

Within departments of the Pennsylvania, e.g., the operating 
department : 

"The vice-president in charge of operation shall have supervision of the 
operating and pension departments. . . . 

He shall nominate to the president for appointment subject to confirma- 
tion by the board, all officers in the departments under his supervision, au- 
thorize additions to the force when necessary, and may at any time direct 
the discharge of any officer or employee therein, if, in his judgment, the in- 
terests of the company require it. Nominations of station agents, con- 
ductors and other employees of the operating department required to give 
bond . . . shall be made by the general manager to him, v^rho, if the same 
have his approval, shall report them to the board. . . . Unless disapproved 
by the board, such appointments shall stand confirmed. ..." ^2* 

"The general manager shall, under the direction of the vice-president in 
charge of operation, have charge of the operating department. 

"He shall have authority with the approval of the vice-president in 
charge of operation, to order through the purchasing agent, machinery 
tools and materials for shops, for repairing, rolling and floating equip- 
ment, machinery, and roadway and for all other purposes of his depart- 
ment. . . . 

"He shall prepare for the approval of the vice-president in charge of 
operation, the president and the board, the necessary rules for the gov- 
ernment of the operating department. 

"He shall, at his discretion, or upon notice from the comptroller, of 

60 Ibid., p. 14. 

61 Pennsylvania Railroad Company : By-Laws and Organization, 1913. 
Amended to 1916, p. 13. 

62 /H J., p. 11. 
62*/6jU, p. 13. 



The Administrative Organisation 89 

irregularities in, or neglect of duty in connection with accounts or the 
handling of the money of the company, or by order of the president or 
board direct the removal or suspension of any employee in his depart- 
ment. . . ." 

"He shall nominate to the vice-president in charge of operation all 
subordinate officers in his department, and shall have authority to appoint 
all necessary employees therein." ^^ 

Similar authority is conferred in each of the other depart- 
ments.^* 

What more conclusive evidence can boards of education ask 
than that presented in the case of the Pennsylvania Railroad 
Company? Each of the concerns to which we have referred are 
enterprises engaged in a business that involves millions of dollars. 
Efficient organization with them is a matter of financial concern. 
The form of administrative organization which in their experi- 
ence makes for the highest efficiency is that which is centralized 
or coordinated. It is that in which expert guidance is placed at 
a premium. 

We have stated as a second principle held by students of ad- 
ministration that responsibility for results should be centered on 
the chief executive. It is but the counterpart of centralized 
authority. It is possible by centralizing authority to fix responsi- 
bility for results. Through the medium of reports on the busi- 
ness transacted or the work accomplished it is possible to learn 
just what results have been achieved or why others have not been 
achieved. 

(2) Holding Executive Officers Responsible, Requiring Re- 
ports. How is provision made for this second administrative 
principle in the field of business? Unfortunately precise data 
on the kind of reports required by directors of department stores 
were not collected. However, the responsibility placed upon exec- 
utive officers in such business firms is quite generally known. 
With a centralized organization such as these concerns have and 
under the keen force of competition, a board of directors that did 
not adequately hold its chief executive responsible for results 
would probably not long survive. In the New York Telephone 

83 Pennsylvania Railroad Co. : By-Laws and Organization, 1913, amend, 
to 1916, pp. 47-8. 
^^Ibid. 



90 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

Company the policy of the board of directors is to demand re- 
sults. The president must submit at each meeting his report of 
earnings and expenses, a cash statement, auditors' vouchers, esti- 
mates, "completion" reports showing the progress of new con- 
structions, increases and decreases in pay rolls, expansions of the 
system and station reports. These reports are by departments 
and for each line of expense. The figures must be presented in 
such a way as to reveal growth or decline of the business in com- 
parative terms so that certain parts of the system may be set over 
against other parts. "^^ Thus it is seen in this company that while 
a wide scope of authority is given to executives in administra- 
tive matters and in proposing new policies, the board of directors, 
through the medium of reports, knows whether it is getting re- 
sults and exercises ultimate control. 

In the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, the president 
must 

". . . report in writing at each regular meeting the condition, standing 
and affairs of the company. . . ." ^^ 

"It shall be the duty of the actuary to keep a strict account of all risks 
taken by the company, and of the registry and cancellations of the policies 
of the company; to examine statistics and tables, and to make all the 
necessary mathematical and actuarial calculations relating to premium 
rates, dividends, reserves and surrender values, forming the basis on 
which the company shall take, cancel or exchange risks, grant or purchase 
annuities . . . and to report at the meeting of the board . . . the condi- 
tion of the affairs of the company, predicated upon an actuarial valuation 
of the obligations of the company and of all its assets, contingent and 
in possession." ^^ 

Responsibility is fixed as to the operating department of the 
New York Central. In addition to the report of the vice-presi- 
dent and general manager previously indicated, such reports as 
these are required : 

"The vice-president and general manager shall . . . make reports at 
such times and in such form as may, in his judgment, be necessary to ex- 
hibit the efficiency of the department." ^^ 

"The assistant general manager . . . shall be aided by ... a superin- 

^5 Statements of the president and of the secretary to the president to 
the writer, June 8, 1916. 
«6 Op. cit., Sec. 15. 

67 Op. cit.. Sec. 20. 

68 New York Central and Hudson R. R. Co. : Organization of the 
Operating Department, 1908, p. 5. 



The Administrative Organization 91 

tendent of passenger transportation . . ." (who) "shall be responsible for 
knowing that traffic is handled promptly and without unnecessary delay." ^^ 
"The general superintendent . . . shall be responsible for the safe and 
economical movement of passenger and freight traffic and for the main- 
tenance of service at its proper standard of efficiency." ''<' 

In addition to the president's monthly report on finance the 
board of directors of the Pennsylvania specifically requires re- 
ports from heads of departments and their assistants. It ex- 
pects them to be familiar with the details of the company's busi- 
ness. 

"The vice-president in charge of finance shall keep himself generally in- 
formed of receipts and disbursements of the treasury, and shall have gen- 
eral supervision of financial matters of the lines owned and controlled 
by the company, and from time to time shall make such report to the presi- 
dent in relation thereto as may be necessary. . . ." ''i 

"The treasurer, under the direction of the vice-president in charge of 
finance, shall keep the vice-president in charge of finance, the president, 
and the board fully advised on all matters connected therewith. He shall 
annually furnish the president with a complete statement of his accounts 
for the preceding fiscal year, and at such other times as the vice-president 
in charge of finance, the president, the finance committee or the board 
may direct. The treasurer shall furnish to the comptroller a daily state- 
ment of all his receipts and expenditures. . . . He shall report to the 
finance committee, at each of its stated meetings, for the information of the 
president and the board, the receipts and disbursements since his last 
report and the balance to the company's credit." ''^ 

"The comptroller shall furnish annually and currently, to the executive 
officers for their information, and that of the board of directors, such 
statements of accounts and statistics relating to the business transactions 
and affairs of the company as will enable them to be properly informed 
thereof." " 

In the operating department of the Pennsylvania the general 
manager is required to report as follows : 

"The general manager shall keep the vice-president in charge of opera- 
tion, the president, and the board fiilly advised of all occurrences and 
transactions of importance connected with his department." ''* 

Responsibility is indicated in no uncertain terms: 

"The division superintendents shall be responsible to their respective 
general superintendents for the maintenance of the track, bridges and 

«9/&t(f., 14. ''^Ihid., p. 22. 

70 Ibid., p. 15. " Ibid., pp. 29-30. 

71 Ibid., p. 16. '* Ibid., p. 47. 



92 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

buildings; the safe, prompt and economical movement of trains, and the 
proper transaction of business thereon. They shall be responsible for all 
expenses incurred in connection with the operation of their respective 
divisions. . . ." '^^ 

In the purchasing department : 

"The purchasing agent shall furnish the supplies committee such in- 
formation and reports as they may require. He shall keep himself in- 
formed in regard to the amount and condition of materials on hand at all 
storage points, and keep in his office a complete record of all materials 
and supplies purchased, the amount on hand at the end of each month and 
the location of the same. . . ." '^^ 

In the general regulations under the heading "appointments" 
the Pennsylvanian directors make the following provision for 
holding heads of departments responsible : 

"The appointment of all employees not herein provided for, and the 
definition of their powers and duties shall be vested in the heads of de- 
partments who are responsible to the board for the faithful performance 
of duty by all the employees in their respective departments." '^'^ 

Annual reports are required of heads of departments as follows: 

"The head of each department shall make to the president, for the in- 
formation of the board, a complete annual report of the affairs under 
his charge during the year, and shall report to the president or the board 
from time to time all matters of importance or interest." ''^ 

From these quotations it is clear that the directors of the 
Pennsylvania expect results and they know whom to hold re- 
sponsible. Through the medium of adequate reports they are 
able to exercise control over their executives. They adopt a 
policy of "hands off" in administrative matters but demand that 
executive officers keep them informed on matters of importance. 

We may turn now to a consideration of our third principle of 
administrative relationship. This asserts that genuine profes- 
sional leadership requires that the chief executive and his as- 
sistants through him be given the power to initiate legislation. 

75 Ibid., p. 59. 

'6 Ibid., pp. 61-2. 

•'■'Ibid., p. 91. 

" Ibid., p. 92. 



The Administrative Organisation 93 

It maintains that unless the board looks to its expert executives 
to recommend improvements or new lines of development it is 
not making wise or efficient use of professoinal leadership. Our 
interest at this point is to discover what provision these success- 
ful business organizations make for capitalizing expert advice in 
the development of new policies or in the improvement of pres- 
ent policies. 

(3) The Initiative in Matters of Policy Among Business Con- 
cerns. The position of the Wanamaker Com.pany on this ques- 
tion is expressed in the quotation previously cited. Not only 
does this firm look for initiative from its executives, but it is the 
policy of the business to encourage initiative throughout the 
system.'^^ 

In the New York Telephone Company new policies are pro- 
posed by the president. Meritorious suggestions for improve- 
ment made by assistants and subordinates are transmitted to exe- 
cutive officers.^" 

The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company is possibly less pro- 
nounced in its attitude toward this question than either of the 
other business concerns here considered. Recommendations are 
made through committees. They "shall make such recommen- 
dations from time to time as they deem proper." However, these 
committees are appointed by the president of the company and he 
is an ex-officio member of all except the auditing committee.^^ In 
addition he is required to report in writing at each regular meet- 
ing of the board,^^ presumably with suggestions for improve- 
ment. 

In the New York Central the initiative given executive officers 
in such matters as the budget may be seen from the rules of the 
operating department : 

"The vice-president and general manager . . . shall prepare and sub- 
mit . . . each year a budget showing the requirements of the property and 
equipment for the suceeding year." ^3 

^9 Statement by assistant general manager to the writer June 8, 1916. 

80 Statement by the secretary to the president made to the writer June 8, 
1916. 

81 Op. cit.. Sec. 6. 

82 Op. cit. Sec. 15. 

83 New York Central and Hudson R. R. Co. : Organization of the Oper- 
ating Department, 1908, p. 6. 



94 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

"The vice-president and general manager . . . shall be responsible for 
the economical and efficient management of the departments under his 
jurisdiction, and shall report, as may be required, upon the condition of 
the property and make such recommendations as he may deem necessary 
to promote the best interests of the company." ^^ 

"The assistant general manager (of transportation) shall make such 
recommendations to the vice-president and general manager in regard to 
additional facilities as he may deem advisable to improve the movement of 
traffic." 85 

For the Pennsylvania we find these provisions : 

"The president shall present to the board at the earliest practicable 
date a report showing the receipts and expenses of the company and of 
leased or auxiliary lines for each month, accompanied by such suggestions 
for improvements and additions to the road and property as he may deem 
necessary." ^^ 

The board of directors expect members of the executive staff 
to procure the information that shall indicate the direction of 
policies of improvement. 

"The assistant to the general manager shall, under the direction of the 
general manager, investigate the advisability of expenditures for new or 
improved facilities, and make such other investigations as may be deemed 
necessary." ^'^ 

"The general superintendent of transportation shall, under the direction 
of the general manager, . . . make recommendations ... to the general 
manager in regard to such additional facilities as may be required to im- 
prove the movement of the traffic. . . ." ^^ 

"The general superintendent of motive power shall, under the direction 
of the general manager, make such suggestions to the respective general 
superintendents as he may deem necessary for the efficiency and economy 
of the service." ^^ 

"The engineer of maintenance of way shall, with the approval of the 
chief engineer of maintenance of way, make such suggestions to the gen- 
eral superintendents as may promote the efficiency and economy of the 
service." ^^ 

Thus it may be seen that the board of directors of these con- 
cerns definitely look toward the experts they employ to take the 

84 Op. cit., p. 5. 

85 Ibid., p. 12. 

88 Pennsylvania Railroad Co. : By-Laws and Organization, 1913. Amend, 
to 1916, p. 8, Sec. VIII— 4. 

87 Ibid., p. 48. 

88 Ibid., pp. 48-9. 

89 Ibid., p. 51. 
eo Ibid., p. 52. 



The Administrative Organization 95 

initiative in recommending changes or new lines of development. 
It indicates a deference to professional leadership. Leadership 
is not only considered as possible from executive officers but de- 
manded of them. In every instance the rules of the Pennsyl- 
vania and the New York Central use the term "shall" and not 
may. 

b. Organization Under the City-Manager Type of Commission 

Government 

We have yet to consider the field of city government. The 
city-manager plan of commission government is a direct out- 
growth of the older commission form of government. Its devel- 
opment has been rapid,^^ possibly due to its ability to get results. 
The Commission form in which a small body of officials, usually 
four or five, each in charge of one department of city administra- 
tion, is a development beyond the council type of organization. 
It centers authority and responsibility for the administration of a 
department upon one man. It does not, however, centralize or 
coordinate all departments under one head, nor is the administra- 
tion of each department considered as a strictly professional 
undertaking. 

The city-manager plan follows the three principles of adminis- 
tration which we witnessed in operation among business enter- 
prises. It provides for a centralized administrative organization 
by coordinating all departments under a single head. The com- 
missioners as individuals retire from active administration of de- 
partments. Authority is placed in the hands of the city-manager 
and he is held responsible for results. 

Chart V of Dayton, Ohio, represents the form of organization 
under this type of city government. Controlling and directing 
authority are centered in the chief executive — the city-manager, 
who is selected for his position because of his administrative 
ability. The position of chief executive is recognized, just as it 
is in the field of business, as one demanding expert leadership. 
Provision is made that he shall not be hampered by lack of 
authority so that his special skill for which the city pays cannot 

^1 The International Year Book for 1915 reports seventy-four cities 
that had adopted and two that had abandoned some form of city-manager 
plan up to Nov., 1915. 



96 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

be utilized. It is in accord with the form of organization found 
in the MinneapoHs and Denver school systems and in contradis- 
tinction to that provided by most boards of education. The 
authority granted the chief executive in this form of city govern- 
ment may be seen by reference to sections of the Dayton charter 
prescribing his powers and duties: 



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Chart V 

"The Commission shall appoint a city-manager who shall be the admin- 
istrative head of the municipal government ..." 
Powers and duties of the city-manager. . . . 

"To see that the laws and ordinances are enforced. To appoint and, 
except as herein provided, remove all directors of departments and all 
subordinate officers and employees in the departments. ... To exercise 
control over all departments and divisions created herein or that may 
be hereafter created by the commission." ^2 

"The city-manager may without notice cause the affairs of any depart- 
ment or the conduct of any officer or employee to be examined. . . . " ^^ 

The provisions of the charter observing our second principle, 
whereby the chief executive and his assistants are to be held re- 
sponsible for results, are definite and pointed. Accompanying the 

92 Dayton, Ohio : "Proposed Charter" adopted Aug. 12, 1913. Sec. 47-48. 
93 /bid.. Sec. SO. 



The Administrative Organization 97 

grants of authority indicated above are provisions definitely cen- 
tering responsibility and requiring that adequate statistical reports 
shall be made showing past achievements and the present status 
of the city's business. Moreover, the chief executive is controlled 
through a detailed budget. The . . . "city-manager . , . shall 
be responsible for the efficient administration of all depart- 
ments." ^* It is his duty : "To keep the commission fully ad- 
vised as to the financial condition and needs of the city. . . ." ^' 
In the department of finance such accounting and reports as 
follows are required : 

"The city accountant shall install and have supervision over the ac- 
counts of all departments and offices of the city . . . (He) shall require 
daily departmental reports of money receipts and the disposition thereof, 
and shall require of each, in such form as may be prescribed, current 
financial and operating statements exhibiting each transaction and the cost 
thereof. . . . Accounting procedure shall be devised and maintained for 
the city adequate to record in detail all transactions affecting the acquisi- 
tion, custodianship, and disposition of values, including cash receipts and 
disbursements ; and the recorded facts shall he presented periodically to 
officials and to the public in such summaries and analytical schedules in 
detailed support thereof as shall be necessary to show the full effect of 
such transactions for each fiscal year upon the finances of the city and 
in relation to each department of the city government, including distinct 
summaries and schedules for each public utility owned and operated." ^^ 

This specific provision requiring that data be presented in such 
form "as shall be necessary to show the full effect of such trans- 
actions" is one which boards of education need to consider. The 
reports referred to in Chapter I are evidence that many boards 
of education are not securing data in such forms as required in 
this form of city government. The rules of boards moreover 
are evidence of the fact that they are not requiring such data. 

Does the form of administrative organization under this plan 
of city government provide for our third principle that the initi- 
ative shall come through the chief executive? The city-manager 
is given the initiative in the matter of the budget. This is per- 
haps the most important of all matters in which he could ask to 
be given the initiative. Through it he must propose his policies, 

^^Ibid., Sec. 47. 
95/fctU, Sec. 48. 
^^Ibid., Sec. 77, 78. 



98 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

and through it he sets forth his program of pubHc service or im- 
provement. Public service depends first of all upon money. The 
budget thus becomes not only the means through which the chief 
executive initiates policies but it becomes the effective means by 
vvrhich the commission exercises its control over him. 

The provisions of the Dayton charter in this matter may be 
noted : 

"... the city-manager shall submit to the commission an estimate of 
the expenditures and revenues of the city departments for the ensuing 
year. This estimate shall be compiled from detailed information ob- 
tained from the several departments. . . . The classification of the esti- 
mate of expenditures . . . shall give ... the following information: 

A detailed estimate of the expense of conducting each department as 
submitted by the department. 

Expenditures for corresponding items for the last two fiscal years. 

Expenditures for corresponding items for the current fiscal year, includ- 
ing adjustments due to transfers between appropriations plus an estimate 
of expenditure necessary to complete the current fiscal year. 

Amount of supplies and materials on hand at the date of the prepara- 
tion of the invoice. 

Increase or decrease of requests compared with the corresponding ap- 
propriations for the current year. 

Such other information as is required by the commission or that the 
city-manager may deem advisable to submit. 

The recommendation of the city-manager as to the amounts to be 
appropriated with reasons therefor in such detail as the commission may 
direct. 

Sufficient copies of such estimate shall be prepared and submitted, that 
there may be copies on file in the office of the commission for inspection 
by the public." ^'' 

In addition to the initiative given the city-manager with respect 
to the budget he is given the power and it becomes his duty : 

"... To recommend to the commission for adoption such measures 
as he may deem necessary or expedient." ^^ 

It is plainly evident that administration in this field as repre- 
sented by Dayton observes the three fundamental administrative 
priniciples which were also observed in the field of business. As 
in the field of business the form of organization is a thoroughly 
centralized or coordinated type. 

^Ubid., Sec. 156. 
S8/61U, Sec. 48. 



The Administrative Organization 99 

4. Summary 

From conditions which may exist and which do exist in the 
administration of some city school systems we have seen that 
there is need of considering administrative organization. Since 
the community pays for professional leadership in the person of 
the superintendent, it has a right to expect that he will be given 
opportunity to assume that leadership. The rules of the board in 
many cities, however, make it unlikely that his professional 
ability will be utilized. The problem is to provide a form of 
organization which will permit of educational leadership. 

We found two distinct types of administrative organization: 

(1) Centralized or coordinated. The organization of Minneapolis 
is an illustration of this type. It is one in which the heads of all 
departments are subordinate to the superintendent as chief execu- 
tive. He has control over them and directs them in their duties. 

(2) Divided or uncoordinated. This form of organization is 
illustrated by that of Boston. In this form of organization the 
superintendent is only one of several heads. He has no essential 
control over any but the instructional department. Between these 
two types is a group of cities whose organization is centralized in 
certain respects and divided or decentralized in others. The 
superintendent may control some other important executive of- 
ficers, but not all, or he may control a number of them with re- 
spect to certain important duties. The reasons for the existence 
of a decentralized organization is to be found in (a) the failure 
of superintendents to demand that their professional prerogatives 
be recognized, and (b) the failure of boards to recognize the pro- 
fessional aspects of educational leadership. 

With a view to discovering what lessons are to be found in the 
fields of business and city government we have examined ad- 
ministrative organization there. In the field of business and in 
the city-manager form of commission government we found the 
centralized type of organization. We found that each of these 
observes three fundamental principles of administration which 
permits of expert executive leadership. (1) A wide scope of 
authority is given to the chief executive in the control of other 
executives and in the direction of their duties. (2) As a counter- 
part to authority, responsibility for results is centered in the chief 



100 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

executive. The board of control retires from active administra- 
tion but retains ultimate control through the budget and through 
reports that must be made showing the achievements, the business 
or financial status of the system. (3) In matters of policy the 
board of control demands that the chief executive and his assis- 
tants shall take the initiative. Expert leadership is purchased and 
utilized. 

We are taught then that the form of administration which 
makes for efficiency in these fields is one that is centralized or 
coordinated. It is one in which professional leadership is 
recognized and in which executive functions are assigned to ex- 
perts. It is one in which the board of control demands results 
and in which it assumes that its own function is to provide the 
legislation necessary to permit the achievement of those possibili- 
ties which are indicated by its leaders. 



CHAPTER III 

AUTHORITY GIVEN THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE 

The purpose of this chapter is to consider more in detail the 
position occupied by the superintendent with reference to matters 
of instruction and certain matters of business and finance. We 
are interested to discover to what extent the professional aspects 
of his position are recognized in certain specific phases of city 
school administration. In the instructional department we are 
interested to discover what control is given the chief executive 
with respect to the teaching staff. In the business department we 
shall endeavor to point out the extent of the authority and control 
given him over building construction and expenditures. To what 
extent do boards of education consider him as their professional 
leader and how do they hold him responsible for results ? 

1. Matters of Instruction 

a. Control of the Teaching Force 
The teaching force will be considered from the viewpoint 
that the superintendent as chief executive ofhcer should be given 
wide powers with respect to the selection of the teaching staff, 
that he should take the initiative in its selection and that the 
board should require of him that he render the community the 
best services of which he is capable in making such selection. 
This is in keeping with the principles observed in the previous 
chapter in the field of business. This means (1) that the super- 
intendent shall be given authority to select teachers from what- 
ever source he can procure those most competent to render pro- 
fessional service, and that he be at liberty to place teachers where 
in his judgment they can be of most service; (2) that provisions 
shall be made as may be necessary to stimulate professional 
growth in teachers; (3) that he be required to use every available 
means of increasing the efficiency of teachers before recommend- 

101 



102 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

ing their dismissal; and (4) that dismissal provisions shall not 
be so difficult as to hinder the successful operation of the system. 

( 1 ) Appointment of teachers. We will consider in this section 
the authority conferred upon the superintendent by rule with re- 
spect to the appointment of teachers, adding such evidence as 
found in recorded proceedings or in visiting. As previously 
stated the rules are to be considered as a form of contract be- 
tween the superintendent and the board. The rules prescribe the 
extent of the authority which he may claim. A board that has 
come to recognize the professional nature of the task of selecting 
teachers will not only be willing but demand as its part of the con- 
tract that the superintendent render the community the profes- 
sional service of which he is capable. It is in line with what we 
witnessed in the field of business. Perhaps the most intensive 
study of this subject is that of Dr. Ballou.^ 

Ballou classifies the provisions found in seventy cities under 
nine different methods with the number of cities in which each 
method is used as indicated here. 

"Class C 

Type 1. The board makes the appointment 1 

Type 2. A committee of the board takes the initial step (nom- 
inates or recommends or takes some similar action) and 

the board makes the appointment 3 

Type 3. A committee of the board makes the appointment, sub- 

j ect to approval by the board 1 

Class B 

Type 4. The superintendent takes the initial step, and the board 

makes the appointment 12 

Type 5. The superintendent takes the initial step, a committee of 
the board approves (includes nominates, recommends, 
examines into, reports on and all similar action taken by a 
committee) the action, and the board makes the appoint- 
ment 38 

Type 6. The superintendent takes the initial step, a committee of 
the board makes the appointment, subject to approval by 
the board 6 

Class A 
Type 7. The superintendent makes the appointment and the board 

approves it 2 

1 The Appointment of Teachers in Cities, 1915. 



Authority Given the Chief Executive 103 

Type 8. The superintendent makes the appointment, a committee 

of the board approves it, and the board confirms it 5 

Type 9. The superintendent makes the appointment, subject only 

to rej ection by the board 2 

Table XIII gives the results from the cities of the present study. 
We have attempted to arrange the provisions somewhat with ref- 
erence to the degree of authority given the superintendent.^ 

TABLE XIII 3 
Appointment of Teachers 

Rules Min. 

Superintendent appoints and the board may disapprove : 20, 
61 2 

Superintendent appoints and the board approves : 3, 4, 11, 

57, 62, 91 6 

3, 19, 25, 41, 57 5 

Superintendent must approve the appointment: 30, 42, 45, 
48, 58-9, 60, 76, 79 9 

Superintendent recommends * and the board appoints : 9, 14, 
16, 18-9, 23-4, 46, 52, 63, 65, 69, 72-3, 86. 90, 92-3, 95, 98, 100 21 
7, 12, 14, 23, 27, 32, 34, 38, 45 9 

Superintendent recommends to a committee and the commit- 
tee appoints : 67 1 

Superintendent recommends to a committee and the commit- 
tee recommends to the board : 1, 5 ^-8, 12-3, 17, 25-6, 28-9, 
31-5, 37-9, 41, 44, 47, 49, 53, 55-6, 66, 77-8, 82-3, 89, 94, 

97, 99 Z6 

2, 4, 11, 16, 20, 22, 30-1, 35, 37, 49, 55-6, 59 14 

Committee recommends: 2. 10, 15. 21-2, 2i6, 50, 71, 74-5, 81, 

84-5, 87-8 IS 

5, 6, 8, 9, 13, 15, 39, 47, 54, 58 10 

Board appoints : 40, 80 2 

10, 28-9, 43 4 

Not definitely specified : 27, 43, 51, 54, 64, 68, 70, 96 8 

2 Difference in provisions found for the same cities by the two studies 
are due to several causes. Some changes in rules have occurred. For the 
reason that Dr. Ballou has not in every instance indicated the precise 
year's rules used it is not possible to determine in every case where 
changes have been made. Other changes may be due to differences in 
interpretation and still others to the fact that we are not considering 
deviations in practice from the actual rules. 

3 Upper rows of figures refer to cities of Table I, lower to Table II. 
* Recommends or nominates. 

^ Board of superintendents in New York nominates. 



104 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

The number of cities in which it is not considered essential 
that the superintendent take the initiative or participate in the ap- 
pointment is even greater in proportion to the number of cities 
than found by Dr. Ballou. From the facts of the two studies it is 
evident that a considerable number of boards have yet to recognize 
the professional nature of the task of selecting teachers. On the 
other hand there are boards which value professional judgment in 
this matter. In Indianapolis it requires a four-fifths vote to re- 
ject the superintendent's appointment, and in New Haven a vote 
of five out of seven. In six others the board approves his ap- 
pointments and in nine other cities the superintendent must ap- 
prove the appointment. Freeport, N. Y., requires a unanimous 
vote to elect a teacher not approved by the superintendent. 

The superintendent has the initiative in nominating or recom- 
mending in fifty-eight additional cities. In thirty-six of these 
his recommendation must pass through the intermediate stage of 
a committee or be upon the advice or in consultation with a com- 
mittee. However, we must bear in mind that although the super- 
intendent is given authority to nominate or recommend, the rules 
do not specify that the committee or members of the board may 
not propose alternative recommendations. That members of the 
board do sometimes propose alternatives may be seen from the 
incident cited previously which occurred in Burlington, Vt. The 
method adopted by the board in this case was in direct contrast 
to a statement of the superintendent reported by Ballou.® Ap- 
parently the superintendent found when the real test came that 
the board, and not he, made the appointment, not with, but con- 
trary to his recommendations. 

Confronted by an obstinate chairman of the committee on 
teachers or a few self-assertive board members who may possibly 
have been teachers at one time or who have political debts to pay, 
what authority may the superintendent claim under such pro- 
visions as the following: 

"Each sub-committee on visitation shall have power to nominate teach- 
ers for its respective schools." '' 

"It shall be the duty of the committee on teachers to recommend to 
the board the election or dismissal of teachers. . . . " ^ 

6 Op. cit., p. 15. 

7 Fall River Rules, 1909, p. 13. 

8 Cedar Rapids, la., Rules, 1914, p. 5. 



Authority Given the Chief Executive 105 

"The committee on teachers shall examine all applications and creden- 
tials of those seeking employment. . . . Applicants shall have the right 
... to appear personally before the board or any committee thereof." ^ 

Those cities in which he must submit his recommendations to 
a committee are difficult to classify. Committee action may be 
perfunctory as observed in some cities visited or it may not. 
However, provisions which permit committee intervention offer 
dangerous opportunities for nullifying professional leadership. 
Desired results may be made impossible of achievement because 
a committee brings about the election of teachers of less ability 
and training than those recommended by the superintendent. It 
is difficult to find a justification for committee participation in 
the appointment of teachers except in cases which involve the 
commitment of the board to a change of policy. It is quite pos- 
sible that the participation of a committee in the appointment in 
some cities has to do with increasing the number of teachers era- 
ployed. In such event the committee may consider the superin- 
tendent's recommendations and advise with him on the wisdom 
of making additions. If committee action is such that it attempts 
to pass upon the qualifications of teachers or if the board itself 
attempts to judge professional fitness, it is an attempt to sub- 
stitute lay judgment where the board is already paying for pro- 
fessional judgment. We have seen that among established busi- 
ness concerns such procedure is not tolerated. That this type of 
procedure is expected to occur in some school systems may be 
seen from the rules of such cities as Fort Worth, Houston,^" 
Lockport, N. Y., and Nashville. 

"The committee on teachers . . . shall as often as possible visit the 
school rooms and make themselves acquainted with the methods of teach- 
ing, discipline and general management of every teacher." ^i 

"It shall be the duty of the committee on teachers, ... to inspect and 
consider the applications, credentials and other evidences of the qualifica- 
tions of applicants. . . . " ^^ 

"The board of education shall hold an oral interview with appli- 
cants. ..." ^3 

» Houston By-Laws, 1914, pp. 270, 281. 

10 O/*. cit. 

11 Fort Worth, Rules, 1913, Art. I. 

12 Lockport, N. Y., Rules, 1910, p. 7. 

13 Nashville, Rules, 1911, p. 27. 



106 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

Such procedure differs materially from that made by Brockton, 
Mass., Sioux City, la., and Oakland, Cal. 

"Each candidate receiving 50 per cent or over at the local examination 
shall be and those receiving less may be, at the option of the board, visited 
at their own schools first by one of the district principals, second by the 
superintendent, and third by a second district principal, in case the opinion 
of the first principal and the superintendent disagree, — or by two district 
principals in case the superintendent does not visit the teacher." i* 

"The superintendent . . . shall examine the record of all applicants, . . . 
he shall when the teachers committee so directs inspect the actual class 
room work of the applicant." ^^ 

"It is hereby made the duty of the . . . superintendent ... to seek 
out and request teachers of exceptional ability to make applications. . . . 
It is made the duty of the . . . superintendent ... to gather full and 
complete information so far as possible, in reference to each and every 
applicant." ^^ 

At least two of our cities. Providence and Pawtucket, R. L, 
give preference in the appointment of teachers to resident candi- 
dates : 

"... due preference shall be given to eligible applicants who are at the 
same time bona fide inhabitants of the city of Providence." " 
"... preference shall be given to resident applicants." ^^ 

Such provisions are a direct handicap to the chief executive. 
Results are expected of him and yet a premium is placed upon 
local candidates with lower qualifications. Residence rather than 
ability is prized. Providence is one of the cities in which the 
superintendent must approve all appointments. Under such cir- 
cumstances a superintendent may be confronted with approving 
mediocrity or losing active support of a group of citizens who are 
encouraged by the rules to foster selfish interests. In either 
case it is quite probable that the professional skill of the super- 
intendent will not yield the community a maximum return. 

At least thirty of the cities, whose rules were examined, handi- 
cap the superintendent still further by discriminating against 
married women. Marriage is automatically made a crime de- 

" Brockton, Rules, 1915, Art. VIII. 
15 Sioux City, Rules, 1912, p. 6. 
le Oakland, Rules, 1910, Art. VIII. 
17 By-Laws, 1914, Art. VII. 
"Rules, 1914, Chap. III. 



Authority Given the Chief Executive 107 

barring from further service as a teacher. While intended to de- 
bar those who may have a tendency to neglect school duties it 
prevents the superintendent from selecting or retaining married 
women of ability and experience who are in a position to render 
efficient service. It thus interferes with his professional initiative 
and attempts to interfere by general rule in a matter that should 
be left to his judgment in each individual case. 

TABLE XIV 19 

Removal for Marriage 

Total 
Cities: 3, 4, 8, 13, 23, 26-7, 29, 31, 33, 35-7, 39, 42, 44, 46, 51, 53, 58-60, 

67, 72, 76, 80, 83, 85-6, 88 30 

We observe from the data given that no small number of 
boards are confronted with the problem of how to secure a max- 
imum of professional guidance in the selection of teachers. 
Doubtless the same causes which account for absence of central- 
ized administrative organization are operative here. These are 
probably augmented by the mistaken idea on the part of some 
board members that the schools exist to afiford positions for rela- 
tives and friends either personal or political rather than for the 
State function of developing future citizens. Restrictions as to 
the field from which superintendents may draw are additional 
causes. The failure of superintendents to demand wider author- 
ity may be due to a reluctance to assume the responsibility and to 
a desire to avoid the prejudices which may arise when such con- 
ceptions of the school's function are prevalent. Such reluctance 
is probably increased and such conceptions are probably fostered 
by the fact that many teachers do not yet recognize the profes- 
sional nature of the teacher's position. They seek the position 
rather than attempt to demonstrate such fitness that the position 
shall seek them. 

(2) Assignments and Transfer of Teachers. Another aspect 
of control over the teaching force is that which comes through 
the authority given to assign or transfer. Unless such power be 
given to the chief executive he is not at liberty to distribute 
his forces as his best professional judgment would demand. 

1^ Numbers refer to cities of Table I. 



108 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

Teachers not placed where all of their professional ability and 
training can be called into service may scarcely be said to be 
working at their maximum of efficiency. 

Table XV indicates the authority specifically granted the super- 
intendent in the one hundred cities of Table I. In only slightly 
more than one half of the cases does he have the pov^er to assign 
or transfer teachers as the situation in his professional judgment 
demands. 

TABLE XV 20 
Assignment or Transfer of Teachers 

Rules Min. 

Superintendent, with or without board approval: 3, 8, 
14, 16-7, 19, 20, 23-7, 29, 30, 32-3. 35-9, 43-4, 46, 48, 51, 54, 

58-60, 64, 67, 69-70, 76, 79, 91-2, 97 39 

20, 34-5, 57 4 

Superintendent, with approval of a committee of the board: 

4, 6, 7, 11-13, 42, 49, 57, 66, 74, 83, 87-8, 96 IS 

3, 9, 52 3 

Superintendent recommends: 1, 5, 41, 45, 47, 50, 53, 68, 77, 

100 10 

2, 4, 33, 55, 59 5 

Committee of the board assign or recommend : 2, 28, 71, 78, 

81, 89 6 

5, 8, 10, 13, 56, 58 6 

Board assigns : 34, 40, 62, 75, 82, 93-5, 98 9 

30 1 

Not definitely specified: 9, 10, 15, 18, 21-2, 31, 52, 55-6, 61, 
63, 65, 72-3, 80, 84-6, 90, 99 21 

An intervening committee of the board is again evident. In 
at least twenty-eight cities the rules authorize a committee to 
participate. In fifteen the committee approves the assignments 
or transfers made by the superintendent. The superintendent's 
recommendations are considered by a committee in seven of the 
ten cases. In fifteen additional cities the board or a committee 
alone are specifically mentioned in connection with the assign- 
ment or transfer of teachers. In the remaining twenty-one cases 
we are left in doubt as far as any specific rule is to be found. 
When the minutes are read we find little difference in the methods 
of making assignments and transfers. 

20 Upper rows of figures refer to cities in Table I, lower to Table II. 



Authority Given the Chief Executive 109 

(3) Other Aspects of Control of Teachers. In a study such 
as this it would be desirable to have data showing the distribution 
of control with respect to salary increases and promotion, require- 
ments for improving teachers in service, records of supervision, 
and provisions for removal of teachers for each city. If boards 
are to follow a policy which gives the chief executive extensive 
powers they may expect that he shall exercise such authority 
judiciously. If the superintendent be given the authority to select 
capable teachers, and if he be given authority to place such 
teachers where they are most apt to render efficient service, the 
board of education, if it pays adequate salaries, has a right to ex- 
pect results. As a part of good business policy it would appear 
that if the superintendent selects the teachers provisions should 
be made which require him to exercise his best professional 
judgment. If removals can be made, as in a number of cities, 
"at any time for want of success," the superintendent may be 
neither cautious to select the most capable teachers nor careful to 
train them adequately when selected. Unless he is given some 
control over salary increases or promotions he may not be able to 
secure a wholesome response on the part of teachers to his efforts 
for their improvement. However, to compile the necessary data 
would require a greater amount of time than is available for the 
present study. We shall present only what appear to be some of 
the most significant facts found with reference to certain of these 
matters. 

(a) Improvement of Teachers in Service. That boards are 
not requiring superintendents to utilize every opportunity to im- 
prove teachers in service, and that they are not offering incentives 
to such improvement, seems to be evident from the provisions 
which bear upon this point. From the fact that we find some 
provisions in more than 90 per cent of the cities, we have evidence 
that boards do require that some efforts be made to increase the 
efficiency of the staff. Personal conference and criticism of in- 
struction, teachers' meetings, and observing other teachers are 
most commonly found. Other provisions found are : demonstra- 
tion teaching by superintendents, supervisors, principals, or 
teachers; testing the progress of pupils; professional reading; 
training classes taught by supervisors; lesson plans; course of 
study; educational lectures; teachers' associations; institutes; in- 



110 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

spection; bulletins; outlines; exhibits and programs. Leaves of 
absence for study on half-pay, as Rochester and Newton provide, 
or salary increases for approved summer school attendance as 
Framingham, Mass., Wichita, Moline, 111., and Rochester grant, 
are rare. Newton makes the following provision : 

"Any teacher who has served continuously in the Newton schools for 
a period of not less than seven years may on recommendation of the 
superintendent be granted leave of absence not exceeding one year. Dur- 
ing such absence the teacher shall . . . receive a monthly salary equal to 
one-half of his or her monthly salary of the preceding year." 21 

Rochester has this provision : 

"Any teacher or principal who shall have served the city of Rochester 
for seven years, may, on recommendation of the superintendent and with 
the approval of the board of education, be granted leave of absence for 
study or travel. . . . Salary during such leave shall be one-half the appli- 
cant's regular salary, but in no event shall it exceed one thousand dollars." 

The results of such study or travel must be satisfactory to the 
superintendent.^^ Upon his recommendation and the approval of 
the board, salary increases for summer school courses are granted 
as follows : 

"... for the single year following such work the sum of $50 shall be 
added to the salary of any teacher, principal or supervisor who pursues 
courses in institutions outside of the city of Rochester. ..." 

For courses pursued within the city tuition to a maximum of 
$25 is paid.^^ Wichita adds $5 per month to the salary of a 
teacher for approved summer school courses taken.^* Framing- 
ham, Mass., is another city among those whose minutes were re- 
ceived, which adds $50 to the salary paid if the summer school 
work is approved by the superintendent.^^ Such incentives to 
improve the quality of the service rendered by teachers as we 
find in the cities just noted have not been utilized by most boards. 
Their worth in overcoming an attitude of indifference to growth, 
among teachers whose tenure may be relatively permanent and 
who may have been capable teachers when first appointed, has yet 
to be recognized by most boards of education. 

81 Rules, 1911, p. 10. 2* Minutes, Oct. 4, 1915. 

22 Rules, 1915, Art. XV. 25 Minutes, Dec. 6, 1915. 

2s/btU, Art. XVI. 



Authority Given the Chief Executive 111 

Not all boards give the superintendent the authority with ref- 
erence to salary increases that will stimulate teachers to render 
the highest quality of service. Columbus,^^ Joplin, Mo.,^^ Lin- 
coln,^^ Minneapolis,^^ Seattle,^° and Topeka ^^ are among those 
which provide for increases conditioned upon exceptional merit. 
Minneapolis has this provision : 

"Recommendations for increases beyond the regular maximum are 
entirely individual, are based upon and adjusted to the recognized superior 
value to the schools of the service of the teacher concerned." ^2 

Joliet,^^ Lincoln,^^ Moline,^^ St. Joseph,^^ and Topeka ^^ pro- 
vide additional salary increments for approved study and travel. 

(b) Records of Supervision. One means a board may employ 
to assure itself that the superintendent is attempting to give the 
community the best of his services is the records of supervision 
which it requires him to present. It may require him to demon- 
strate the results of such supervision through the records kept 
and reports made. However, the opportunity to exercise this 
means of control over the chief executive and his supervisory 
staff of assistants has as yet been little realized by boards. This 
is indicated from Table III. In some cases superintendents re- 
port such meaningless matters as "the number of visits" by super- 
visors. Rarely do they report the achievements of supervisors, 
teachers, or pupils.^^ In few instances do the rules specify re- 
ports which might be interpreted as requiring records of super- 
vision, or reports upon the achievements of supervisors, princi- 
pals, teachers or pupils. 

(c) Removal of Teachers. Teachers may be removed at any 
time for want of success in a number of cities. Some discharge 
on two weeks' or thirty days' notice, others are found where con- 
tract terms must be observed. Still others are found where 
teachers can be removed for cause only. In at least seventeen 
cities, teachers may be removed at pleasure of the board, in five 
more, upon two weeks' notice, and in six upon thirty days' notice, 

2s Rules, 1910—413. sa Rules, 1912, p. 25. 

" Rules, 1915, pp. 82-83. s* Report, 1914-15, p. 28. 

28 Report, 1914-15, p. 28. 8= Rules, 1915, p. 83. 

29 Rules, 1915— VII, c. 5. 3« Rules, 1913, p. 43. 
so Rules, 1908, Art. XIII. " Rules, 1914, p. 22. 

81 Rules, 1914, p. 22. 38 Tables III and IV. 

82 Rules, 1915, VII, c. 5. 



112 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

in each case, for want of success. Teachers may be removed at 
any time in Columbus, Evansville, Fall River, Fargo, Greeley, 
Holyoke, Joliet, Lockport, New Orleans, Newport, Newton, Oak- 
land, Pine Bluffs, Providence, St. Louis, Topeka, and Winston — 
Salem. Covington, Fort Worth, Louisville, New Haven,^^ and 
Portland, Ore., dismiss upon two weeks' notice. Beverly, De- 
troit, Grand Rapids, Milton, Nashville, and Waltham reserve the 
right to dismiss upon thirty days' notice. A number of these, 
however, require that a teacher desiring to resign shall give the 
board a longer time of notice than the board expects to give the 
teacher in return. With such provisions for easy removal, a 
means is afforded for disposing of incompetent teachers, but there 
is also a danger that it may not be conducive to the greatest care 
in the selection of teachers. On the other hand where teachers 
can be removed only for cause, as in New Jersey after three years' 
service,*" the superintendent may be prevented from securing de- 
sirable results through the presence of incompetent or indolent 
teachers. 

h. Text-Books and Courses of Study 

(1) Selection of Text-Books. The provisions made for the 
selection of text-books are summarized in Table XVL In such 
a professional matter as the selection of text-books it is sur- 
prising to find no small portion of cities in which the board does 
not deem it necessary to specify that its chief executive shall take 
part. 

TABLE XVI 41 

Selection of Text-Books 

Rules Min. 
Superintendent selects — board approval may or may not be 

specified : 11, 52, 61, 72, 76, 94-5, 97 8 

18 1 

Superintendent recommends and board approves : 1, 6, 9, 16, 

24-7, 77, 82, 93, 100 '. 12 

3, 17, 19, 21, 31, 34, 45-6, 53 9 

39 Superintendent dismisses at his discretion, but the board may, by a 
vote of five of the seven members, reverse his decision. 

40 School Laws, 1914, Sec. 130. 

*i The upper rovir of figures under each form of provision refers to cities 
of Table I and the lovirer to those of Table IL 



Authority Given the Chief Executive 113 

Superintendent recommends to a committee, committee rec- 
ommends to board: 2, 4, 10,42 12, 15, 17, 20, 28-9, 31-4, 
37, 39, 41, 44-5, 47, 49, 50, 55, 59, 60, 62-3, 68-9, 75, 87, 91 . . 31 
2, 11, 38, 55, 60 S 

Members of the department of instruction officially partici- 
pate : 5, 8, 10,42 19^ 23, 42, 53, 74, 84, 98 10 

6, 47, 59 3 

Committee of the board recommends, superintendent has no 
official authority: 7, 13, 21-2, 35-6. 38, 40. 48, 56-8, 66-7, 

71, 73, 78, 81, 83, 85-6, 89, 90 23 

4, 5, 8-10, 13, 49 7 

Board authorizes : 3, 18, 30, 65, 70, 79, 80, 99 8 

12, 50, 57 3 

Not definitely specified : 14, 43, 46, 51, 54, 64, 88, 92, 96 9 

In ten cities the rules specify that officers or other representa- 
tives of the instructional department shall participate in the selec- 
tion of text-books. In New York the board of superintendents 
rather than the superintendent recommends, a committee con- 
siders, and the board approves.*^ In Baltimore the superinten- 
dent and assistant superintendents advise the board. If divided 
in their recommendations the board makes the final decision.** 
The superintendent apparently has no more voice than an as- 
sistant superintendent. The board of superintendents in Boston 
report to the superintendent on proposed changes and he recom- 
mends to the board.*^ The superintendent at Paterson appoints 
a committee of principals approved by the board. A com- 
mittee of the board recommends to the board from the books 
selected by a committee of principals.*^ In Portland, Me., a com- 
mittee of principals and teachers report to the superintendent, 
who transmits the recommendation of this committee with his 
own to a committee of the board, who report to the board.*'^ In 
Grand Rapids while no nominations can be made for grade text- 
books except by the superintendent who recommends to a com- 

42 Superintendent recommends grade texts to a committee of the board. 
For high school texts the superintendent, principal of the high school and 
principal of the "union school" form a committee which recommends to a 
committee of the board. A majority of this committee may recommend 
on its own initiative. Rules 1913 — 30. 

43 By-Laws, 1914, p. 20. 

44 Rules, 1913, p. 9. 

45 Proposed Rules, 1915, Sec. 59, 68. 

46 Rules, 1911, Sec. 30. 

47 Report, 1914, p. 20. 



114 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

mittee of the board, he has no such authority in the selection of 
high school texts. The superintendent and two high school 
principals recommend to a committee of the board. A majority 
of the three may recommend without the consent of the other. 
The board committee recommends to the board.*^ In New Or- 
leans the superintendent transmits the views of assistant superin- 
tendents, principals, and teachers with his own to the board.*^ 
Supervisors in Joplin make "recommendations as to changes" to 
the superintendent. A committee of the board apparently par- 
ticipates though the provision is somewhat vague.^'* 

The board in Providence °^ provides for both committee partici- 
pation and teacher participation: 

"Every proposition or request for a change ... in text-books . . . for 
use in the day schools, shall be submitted to the committee in charge of the 
schools to be affected by the proposed change, unless the proposed change 
shall affect a special branch of instruction, and in that case it shall be 
submitted to the committee in charge of that branch of instruction. Such 
committee, if they shall deem the change advisable, shall submit the mat- 
ter to the school committee, and thereupon the matter shall be submitted 
to a ... committee of teachers to be constituted as follows : 

For books ... to be used in the primary schools only, such committee 
of teachers shall consist of five members and shall be appointed by a 
majority of the principals of the primary schools ..." 

Similar provisions are made for the appointment of a com- 
mittee of teachers in grammar and high schools. In the case of 
special branches the committee in charge of such branch itself 
appoints the committee of teachers. 

"The report of such committee of teachers shall be submitted to the 
superintendent and he shall transmit it, together with his recommenda- 
tion ... to the committee in charge . . . who shall report the matter 
to the school committee with their recommendation." 

Johnstown, Pa., provides for teacher participation and also en- 
courages activity on the part of publishers: 

"... the superintendent shall request publishers to supply samples for 
each building in the city, and literature and briefs of the merit and adapta- 
bihty of such books. The superintendent shall be held responsible for 
the proper distribution of such books, literature, and briefs among all 

48 Rules, 1913, Sec. 30. ^o Rules, 1915, Sec. I, IV. 

« Rules, 1913— XII. " By-laws, 1914, p. 23f. 



Authority Given the Chief Executive 115 

the buildings of the city, and for the opportunity of every teacher affected 
to examine these books. He shall require each teacher ... to deposit in 
his office a sealed envelope in which each teacher indicates a first and 
second choice, with reasons in full for first choice. A committee of five 
principals, appointed by the principals of the city at a meeting conducted 
by the superintendent of schools shall canvass and tabulate the vote. 
The superintendent shall then organize the arguments of the teachers in 
behalf of the books that receive first choice and present the same, together 
with his own recommendation and the tabulated report of the committee 
of principals, to the board ..." s^* 

A committee of the board participates in the selection of text- 
books in sixty cities of the ninety-one whose rules lend themselves 
to interpretation. In addition to the six instances just indicated 
it considers the recommendation of the superintendent in thirty 
others, considers the texts prescribed by the superintendent in St. 
Louis,^^ and may initiate of its own accord in twenty-three cities. 
In two other cases of committee participation besides Grand 
Rapids and St. Louis the rules specify that the selection must be 
approved by the superintendent. These are Lockport, N. Y.,^' 
and Holyoke, Mass.^* In Lockport the selection must likewise be 
approved by the committee. We see no reason why a committee 
could not "play politics" under such circumstances if it so desired. 

The superintendent recommends direct in twelve cases and is 
given authority to select or "prescribe" in eight others. Three 
of the latter, Montgomery,^^ Ala., Freeport, N. Y.,^^ and St. 
Louis,^^ require board approval. Altogether he initiates sup- 
posedly, exclusive of those in which he selects and in which others 
of his department participate, in forty-two cities. We need to be 
cautious in one respect however. In those cities in which his 
recommendations are made to a committee, there is little assur- 
ance that the committee will not present alternative recommenda- 
tions. 

In the selection of text-books we have witnessed still another 
respect in which many boards have yet to recognize the profes- 
sional aspects of educational leadership. While the superinten- 
dent is the one to whom the board looks for educational results 
we see a tendency for the board to retain not only the function of 

51* Rules, 1912, Amend. 1915. " Ruieg, 1913^ pp. lO-ll. 

«s2 Rules, 1914, p. 10. s" Rules, 1914, p. 2. 

63 Rules, 1910, 27, 97. ea Rules, 1914, p. 10. 



116 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

determining the texts to be used, but even the authority to initiate 
changes. We do not for a moment beHeve that in all of the cities, 
or even in the larger part of them, the superintendent does not 
take the initiative. The significant fact is that he is not given 
such authority by rule. A second tendency observed is that of 
giving his professional assistants authority to participate in the 
selection or even to set aside his recommendations. Any pro- 
vision which encourages divided recommendations as in Baltimore, 
or the high schools of Grand Rapids, permits interference with the 
superintendent in giving the community the full benefit of his 
professional ability. Unless his approval is required where 
teachers participate in the selection of texts an obstacle is placed 
in the way of his leadership. Recommendations are made by em- 
ployees and subordinate officers in the field of business but they 
are transmitted through executive channels to the chief exec- 
utive. 

The instances found of board action on text-books in the sixty 
cities whose minutes were read do not bear out the contention of 
those who opine that committees exercise but little the authority 
given them in the selection of text-books. The second row of 
figures in Table XVI referring to cities of Table II give the dis- 
tribution of twenty-eight cases found. Des Moines affords an 
illustration of how a committee of the board may participate in an 
administrative and professional matter. 

"Your instruction committee, having charge of the selection of text- 
books, submits the following respecting the adoption of music readers. 

Early in May a committee of twenty-two was appointed, representing all 
of the grades in the system. The publishing houses interested were noti- 
fied of the membership of this committee and were authorized to visit 
its members during a particular week. On June 1st the representatives 
of the various publishing houses were not admitted and after a careful and 
complete discussion of the various books submitted a secret ballot was 
taken in which each member of the committee was directed to vote for a 
first and second choice. These ballots were sealed and placed in the hands 
of the chairman of the instruction committee where they remained until 
some ten days ago. The votes of the special committee are as fol- 
lows :" 57 

It will be seen that a premium is placed on the persuasive 
powers of book agents rather than upon independent professional 

57 July 27, 1915. ^ 



Authority Given the Chief Executive 117 

judgment. Their ability to persuade teachers who may or may 
not be competent judges and not the authority of the chief exec- 
utive is the deciding factor. 

(2) Preparation of Course of Study. That it should be neces- 
sary to point out the need of professional skill and judgment in 
the selection of the course of study may seem to those experienced 
in matters educational as preposterous. Yet a perusal of the 
rules and regulations of boards of education indicates that by no 
means have all boards reached the point where they are ready to 
acknowledge the need of the professionally trained educator in 
shaping the course of study. It is not infrequent to find this 
task attempted by a committee of the board or even by the board 
itself. 

"This committee shall take into careful consideration every proposition 
to change the course of study, and no such proposition shall be acted upon 
by the board until it has been referred to this committee and reported 
upon." ^8 

"The committee on text-books shall consider and report in writing upon 
all propositions for any change in the course of studies except as pro- 
vided in Sec. 7." Sec. 7 reads : "The committee on music, drawing, and 
writing shall have charge of their respective branches, and shall recom- 
mend such changes and improvements as may be needed." ^^ 

"It shall be the duty of the committee on course of study and text- 
books to acquaint themselves with the general character and purpose of 
the courses of instruction being pursued in the schools ; to carefully inves- 
tigate their general object and probable effect upon the future lives and 
characters of the children of this district; and to recommend such changes 
as may be deemed advisable." ^° 

"The board shall exercise exclusive control over the curriculum . . . 
determining what branches may be included and the extent to which the 
teaching of each of these branches may be carried." ^^ 

Committee action is necessarily prefunctory in large measure 
as well as non-professional in the case of the course of study. 
The amount of time consumed in the preparation of a modern 
course of study is an amount larger than a member of the board 
could give and still have time to attend to important duties. 
What useful purpose a committee on course of study can serve, 

B8 Waterbury, Conn., Rules and Regulations, 1914. Ch. I, Sec. 10. 
59 Pittsfield, Mass., Rules of the School Committee, 1911. Ch. II. Sec. 
6, 7. 

eojoliet. 111., Manual, 1912, p. 12. 

81 Cedar Rapids, la., Rules and Regulations, 1914, XVI— I. 



118 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

other than to consider with the superintendent the advisability of 
adding new subjects which may require additional expenditures, 
is difficult to conceive. 

Table XVII indicates the provisions found for controlling the 
course of study. If this table is compared with Table XVI we 
note some evidence that the preparation of the course of study 
is considered more as a professional matter than the selection of 
text-books. The largest differences are in two groups, that in 
which the superintendent recommends to the board, and that in 
which a committee recommends to the board without any official 
authority to initiate being given to the superintendent. 

TABLE XVII 62 

Course of Study 

Rules Min. 

Superintendent prepares — board approval may or may not be 

required : 3, 6, 9, 11, 20-1, 23, 30, 61, 80, 92-3, 95, 97 14 

4, 14 2 

Superintendent recommends and board approves : 1, 16, 24-7, 

44, 51-2, 54, 60, 65, 67-9, 72-3, 76-7, 82, 88 94, 99, 100 24 

12, 19, 21, 45 4 

Superintendent recommends to a committee, and committee 
recommends to board : 2, 4, 8, 10, 12-3, 15, 17, 29, 31-4, 39, 

41. 45, 49. 50. 55. 57. 59. 62. 66, 74. 87. 90. 91 27 

6,9,10,20 4 

Members of the department of instruction officially partici- 
pate: 5, 19 2 

59 1 

Committee of the board recommends — superintendent has no 
official authority: 35-6. 38. 40. 47-8. 56. 58. 71, 75, 78, 

83, 85-6 14 

8, 58 2 

Board authorizes or prescribes : 18, 28, 37, 70. 79, 81 6 

7 1 

Not definitely specified: 7, 14, 22. 42-3, 46, 53, 63-4, 84, 89, 
96, 98 13 

Of the fourteen cities in which the board gives the committee 
on course of study initial authority to recommend changes, twelve 

^2 Boards commonly do not distinguish between the use of the terms, 
"Course of Study" and "Curriculum." In the absence of any distinction, 
whatever provision was found is here included under Course of Study. 
Upper rows of given figures refer to cities of Table I, lower to those of 
Table II. 



Authority Given the Chief Executive 119 

fall within the corresponding group in Table XVI. Of the 
twenty in the first two groups of the table on selection of text- 
books all are found within the first two groups of the table on the 
course of study. This indicates that boards which specify that 
the superintendent of schools shall have authority either to initiate 
changes in or select text-books, tend to give him similar powers 
in the preparation of the course of study. The difference, then, 
between the two tables with respect to the authority and initiative 
given to the superintendent by rule, does not appear to be acci- 
dental. Boards have chosen to retain control over the selection 
of text-books in a larger number of cities than in the case of the 
course of study. 

The percentage of cases in which the board has yet to fully 
acknowledge educational leadership with respect to the course of 
study is not small. A committee of the board participates in at 
least forty- three out of eighty-seven cities whose rules lend them- 
selves to interpretation. Baltimore makes the same unfortunate 
division of responsibility in case of the course of study that it 
does in the case of text-books.''^ New York has an unusual 
provision in that the power to initiate changes rests with a com- 
mittee of the board. It must submit proposed changes to the 
board of superintendents for approval, but may by a three-fourths 
vote adopt without approval.^* In neither of these cities can the 
board be said to have made its superintendent the authoritative 
head of the school system with respect to the course of study. 
He must share his authority with others. 

The superintendent prepares or prescribes the course of study in 
fourteen cities. In New Haven,^^ however, he must consult with 
a committee of the board. He recommends direct to the board 
or arranges with board approval in twenty- four more cases. In 
twenty-seven others he apparently has the initiative but a com- 
mittee intervenes. 

In one form of practice often found among cities visited the 
superintendent appoints committees composed of teachers, princi- 
pals, and supervisors to assist him in preparing courses of study. 
It is not unusual to find several committees each working on dif- 
ferent subjects. This method of preparing the course of study 

«3 Rules, 1913, p. 9. 
" Rules, 1914, p. 20. 
«5 Rules, 1910, p. 12. 



120 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

is illustrated in Lincoln, Nebraska. The following quotation from 
the superintendent's statement described the procedure : ^® 

"Originally a committee (of teachers) was appointed (by the superin- 
tendent) to group the subject matter of Geography as it might apply 
best to the various grades. This committee outlined first a minimum of 
geographical facts which ought to be acquired in each grade; second, 
a series of geographical problems which spring most naturally from our 
own community life and to which geographical knowledge and processes 
might apply. Their outline was used tentatively during a school year. A 
questionnaire was sent to each of the principals who replied to it after 
holding conference with her teachers of Geography. Each principal also 
sent in the best samples of plan books and of motivated problems which 
had grown up in her class room work. These are being incorporated 
with such of the original outlines as have proved entirely satisfactory after 
making wise deductions and eliminations." 

What may be considered a new development upon this method 
of preparing courses of study occurs in a few cities. Reading, in 
the preparation of its course of study in arithmetic, sought to pro- 
cure the services of the best professional judgment available. 
The superintendent with the assistance of teachers and super- 
visors prepared a course of study. This course when thus pre- 
pared represented the unaided professional judgment of the 
teachers, supervisors, and superintendent. The course was then 
submitted to a recognized specialist in courses of study for criti- 
cism and suggested changes which in his professional judgment 
were warranted. ^^ This represents a type of development that 
may occur where boards of education give the superintendent 
wide authority in the preparation of courses of study. 

2. Matters of Business 

To discover what initiative and authority the superintendent 
has in matters of business, certain phases of the business ad- 
ministration were selected. The rules and regulations were ex- 
amined for any provisions which give him the initiative with re- 
spect to recommendations on the erection or location of buildings 

^8 Letter, March 8, 1916. A member of the board was appointed by 
the superintendent on this professional committee of teachers, principals, 
and supervisors. However, judging from the writer's personal acquaint- 
ance of the situation, this member of the board, who holds the degree of 
Ph.D., is to be regarded, not as a lay, but rather as a professional member 
of this committee. 

6^ Letter of the superintendent, Feb. 17, 1916. 



Authority Given the Chief Executive 121 

and which give him the power of approval of architects' plans. 
They were further examined for provisions which give him 
similar powers with respect to the budget. 

a. Building Construction 

There is a clear absence of any specific provisions in most cities 
giving the superintendent authority to approve or disapprove archi- 
tects' plans for buildings. There is a marked absence of specific 
provisions which give the superintendent the initiative or which 
require his approval in matters of building construction. Few 
boards make such provisions with respect to recommendations 
for new buildings, their location, and approval of architects' plans 
of buildings therefor or for improvement of old buildings. Very 
general rules are sometimes found which make it a duty of the 
superintendent to make recommendations for the improvement 
of the school system. We see no reason, however, for attaching 
an interpretation to these liberal enough to include the erection of 
buildings and the responsibility for approval of plans when boards 
do not expect that such shall be the case in such matters as selec- 
tion of text-books, approval of courses of study, or appointment 
of teachers. Of the hundred cities none were found which re- 
quire that the location of buildings shall meet the approval of the 
superintendent as chief executive. His information or sugges- 
tions as to plans are sought in seven cities : Fort Smith,^^ Fre- 
mont,^^ Holyoke,^° Joplin,^^ Lawrence,''^ Lincoln,^^ Salt Lake.'^* 
In Philadelphia, the superintendent of buildings is required by 
law ''^ to submit plans for construction of new buildings to the 
superintendent for criticism. In Minneapolis '^® and Denver '^^ 
the assistant superintendent in charge of business affairs has 
charge of construction. In Norwalk ^^ and Indianapolis ''^ the 
superintendent recommends alterations or enlargements. In St. 
Louis ®° the superintendent reports to the board on "new build- 
ings or additions." He reports "defects or deficiencies" in 

68 Rules, 1911, Chap. V. 

69 Statement of superintendent to the writer, Jan. 5, 1916. 

70 Rules, 1913, Sec. 34. 

"Rules, 1915, Sec. 11. "Rules, 1915. 

72 Rules, 1912. 77 Rules, Jan., 1916, Art. II. 

73 Rules, 1912, pp. 15-17. 78 Rules, 1914. 

74 Rules, 1906, Art. II. 79 Rules, 1911, X. 

^5 School Laws, 1915, Sec. 2231. so Rules, 1914, Rule 25. 



122 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

Brockton.^^ In Nashville ^^ local committees "shall visit the 
schools — confer with the superintendent — and recommend im- 
provements." 

Other than the provisions found in the above fifteen cities we 
find little authority given to the superintendent by rule with re- 
spect to the construction of buildings. Except for Joplin and 
Philadelphia we may seem to have disregarded those cities indi- 
cated in Table XII of Chapter II in which the superintendent 
directs the superintendent of buildings. However, in each of the 
remaining cases either the superintendent of buildings does not 
have charge of construction or he is not under direction of the 
superintendent in such matters. From the facts found it seems 
a fair conclusion that many boards have yet to recognize the 
professional leadership of their chief executive in matters of 
building construction. 

b. The Budget 

When we read the rules and regulations for provisions refer- 
ring to budget making, we note in a considerable number of cities 
an absence of any reference whatsoever to the budget. The term 
"budget" is rarely used. A term commonly employed is "esti- 
mate of receipts and expenditures." The absence of any specific 
reference to the superintendent in this connection in over 80 per 
cent of the cases is evidence that most boards do not expect, as 
they might, to use the budget as an effective means of controlling 
the chief executive. They cannot be said to look upon the bud- 
get as the instrument through which the superintendent is to 
initiate proposed policies. Not one city was found in which the 
board of education requires the chief executive to submit a budget 
as detailed as that required of the city-manager in Dayton. In 
only seven cities, Denver, Fremont, Lawrence, Lincoln, Minne- 
apolis, Norwalk, and Schenectady are we positive that the budget 
is prepared by the superintendent or under his direction. In 
Denver ^^ and Minneapolis ^* the superintendent in conference 
with the assistant superintendent in charge of business affairs 
prepares the budget. Lawrence ®^ requires the superintendent 

81 Rules, 1915, Art. III. «* Op. cit, II-9. 

62 Rules, 1911, Chap. V. ss Rules, 1912, Chap. II. 

83 Op. cit. Sec. 19. 



Authority Given the Chief Executive 123 

"to annually prepare an estimate of the expenses of the schools 
and to make a report of the same to the board in detail." In 
Norwalk ®^ and Lincoln ^^ the superintendent is required to furnish 
the finance committee with data on the budget though in practice, 
as in the two remaining cities, he prepares it. We cannot say in 
how many other cities he prepares the budget in practice or how 
many have anything worthy of the title of "budget." A complete 
study of the subject of school budgets would require a study in 
itself. We know that in eight other cities the superintendent 
either by rule or practice is assigned the work of preparing cer- 
tain sections of the budget. In Terre Haute ^® he estimates the 
needs of the department of education and attendance, but the 
business director prepares the estimate for all departments. 
Covington,^^ Laramie,®" Louisville,®^ Milton, Mass.,®^ and Sioux 
City,®^ require him to estimate such matters as books and supplies 
or equipment. In Pierce and West Point, Nebraska, he does 
so as a matter of practice. In another, Kansas City, Mo., the 
executive officers in practice assist the finance committee but the 
board revises. Cleveland only mentions "estimated receipts and 
expenditures" and then under the duties of the business director 
who is independent of the superintendent. We noted in Chapter 
II that in both Indianapolis and Boston the board seeks the as- 
sistance of the business agent rather than the superintendent. 
Of the eighty remaining cities, forty-nine assign to the finance 
committee the duty of either preparing the budget or revising the 
estimates of other committees. Thirty-one are silent with re- 
spect to this important matter. 

From such facts as these it appears that most boards of educa- 
tion are neglecting the opportunity to use the chief executive's 
ability in directing its financial policies. They do not give him 
the authority necessary to make him the real leader in matters 
of educational and financial administration, neither do they hold 
him responsible for educational results through the budget, nor 
do they expect him to initiate new policies through it. They fail 
to avail themselves of the one important instrument through 
which a board may exercise its legislative functions, knowing defi- 
es Rules, 1914, Sec. 17. so Rules, 1913, Sec. 31. 
" Rules, 1912, p. 14. «i Rules, 1910, Sec. 13. 

88 Rules, 1914, pp. 8, 31. »2 Rules, 1913, Sec. 16. 

89 Rules, 1914, Sec. 36. »3 Rules, 1912— IX. 



124 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

nitely just what policies are to mean and what is to be achieved 
with the money appropriated, and which at the same time secures 
a maximum of administrative leadership and responsibility from 
the chief executive and his assistants. This failure to use the 
budget as an instrument of control is probably a fault of superin- 
tendents as well as boards of education. With the gradual de- 
velopment of a class of superintendents who have had a careful 
training in scientific budget making it is possible that we may ex- 
pect some improvement in this chaotic condition in the near 
future. 

3. Summary 

From the data presented with respect to the authority granted 
the chief executive in purely professional matters, we see that 
there are boards in no small number who have not yet solved the 
problem of a judicious distribution of lay and professional con- 
trol. This is evident in such instructional matters as : the ap- 
pointment of teachers, their assignment and transfer, promotion 
in salaries and removal ; the selection of text-books and the prep- 
aration of courses of study. It is evident in such business matters 
as building construction and the budget. In each of these re- 
spects boards are found which do not specifically recognize the 
need of professional leadership. Either the board or its com- 
mittee assumes a role in many cases which is not unimportant 
from the standpoint of efficient administration. Comparatively 
few boards specifically designate the functions of committees as 
advisory and not administrative. Few designate that the superin- 
tendent must approve in these professional matters. This in 
itself is evidence that boards do not defer to professional judg- 
ment in the same degree as we find in business administration. 
They have not learned the lesson offered by business organiza- 
tions, namely: that efficient results can be obtained by (1) giving 
to the chief executive large powers, (2) holding him responsible 
for results, (3) and designating him as the one to initiate new 
policies. 



CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 

We may summarize our findings in the form of a description 
of the typical board of education. It may be described some- 
what as follows : 

The typical board of education has from five to nine members 
and four to six committees. It commonly has among its com- 
mittees, a committee on buildings, a committee on finance and a 
committee on teachers. These committees perform administra- 
tive as well as legislative matters. The policies recommended by 
committees are accepted without question. The board itself has 
not formed a clear conception of the professional aspects of its 
superintendent's position. It spends much of its own time on 
unimportant matters and matters of administrative detail. It 
does not require that its superintendent shall make accurate, de- 
tailed objective reports on past achievements of the system and 
present proposals as a basis for passing upon school policies. It 
provides several executive officers each comparatively independent 
of the superintendent, whose scope of authority is limited. He 
commonly makes recommendations on the appointment and as- 
signment of teachers, the selection of text-books and the prepara- 
tion of courses of study, but he is not assured that the board will 
not take action altogether independent of his recommendations. 
The board does not consider it essential that the location of build- 
ings and plans for their construction shall meet educational re- 
quirements as recommended by the superintendent. It does not 
consider it essential that the budget shall be prepared by the 
superintendent and his assistants, neither does it expect him to 
propose new policies through it nor does it expect to hold him 
responsible for results through it. 

Our conclusions and recommendations are: — 
, 1. That a board of education should endeavor to discover its 
own proper duties and those that should be delegated to 
professional executive officers. 

125 



126 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

2. That its own function is first of all 

(a) to choose a professionally trained chief executive, 
centralize authority and responsibility for results in 
him and expect him to initiate all policies ; and then 

(b) to debate such proposed policies with him in the 
light of definite objective evidence and to provide 
the legislation necessary to secure efficient results. 

3. That a board of education need wait for no precedent to 
adopt a form of administrative organization in which the 
professional superintendent is made the administrative 
leader and chief executive of the system, and in which the 
board itself serves in an advisory and legislative capacity 
and acts only through its chief executive. Such precedent 
is amply provided by successful business organizations. 

Our recommendations will be presented more in detail in the 
form of a proposed set of rules and regulations, covering points 
touched upon in the present study. 

The administrative procedure we have outlined in this study 
may be considered impossible of achievement because of certain 
inherent limitations. Objections will come from two sources, (1) 
those who object to what appears an unwarranted centralization 
of power in a democratic system of education and (2) those who 
maintain that the task outlined for the chief executive is beyond 
the capacity of the ordinary superintendent of schools. To the 
first of these we will cite in answer the form of democracy under 
the English national government.^* Our proposed system is a 
parallel to this deferential system of democratic government 
through trained leaders, and which is possibly the most successful 
form of democratic government known to students of govern- 
ment. To the second objection we will agree that the task is 
beyond unprepared superintendents. It requires that leaders be 
professionally trained and that boards exercise well their most 
important duty of selecting a chief executive officer. 

5* For a description of the operation of the English government the 
reader is referred to Bagehot: "English Constitution," or Lowell, "Gov- 
ernment of England." 



APPENDIX A 

PROPOSED RULES AND REGULATIONS 

For a Board of Seven Members 

/ 

Organization — The board shall meet annually for organization in the cen- 
tral administrative offices of the schools, at which meeting five members 
shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business. The superin- 
tendent of schools as chief executive officer shall serve as president of 
the board. At this meeting the board shall elect a treasurer. The presi- 
dent shall at this meeting or as soon as he deems advisable thereafter 
announce the standing committees for the year. These committees shall 
be a committee on buildings, a committee on finance, a committee on 
teachers and such other special committees as the superintendent may from 
time to time desire and the board approve. 

Meetings — The board shall meet regularly each month at such hour as 
the president may from time to time designate. Special meetings shall 
be held at the direction of the president or upon the written request of 
three members. 

Committees — The duties of all committees shall be advisory and not 
executive. The chief executive shall have power to refer current business 
to appropriate committees for consideration. It shall be the primary 
function of committees to consider the reports of executive officers. 

Finance committee — It shall be the duty of the finance committee to 
consider all important matters of financial policy. It shall consider the 
recommendations of the chief executive for additional capital outlays and 
the means of financing such outlays. It shall consider the annual budget 
for maintenance in conference with the chief executive and the assistant 
superintendent in charge of business affairs. It shall consider the reports 
of the treasurer and of the assistant superintendent of business affairs on 
the financial status of the system. 

Building committee — It shall be the duty of the building committee to 
consider, in conference with the chief executive and the assistant super- 
intendent in charge of business affairs, the recommendations on the loca- 
tion of buildings and sites and construction of new school buildings. It 
shall consider the recommendations of the chief executive for the altera- 
tion and improvement of old buildings. It shall, in conference with the 
chief executive and the assistant superintendent in charge of business 
affairs, examine plans and specifications. It shall be the duty of this 

127 



128 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

committee to consider the report of the assistant superintendent of busi- 
ness affairs as it pertains to buildings. 

Committee on teachers — It shall be the duty of the committee on teach- 
ers to advise with the superintendent, affording a group judgment, on his 
recommendations for extensions or readjustments of the scope of educa- 
tional activities. It shall consider the report of the superintendent con- 
cerning the progress of the schools. 

Executive officers — 

The superintendent — The superintendent of schools shall be the chief 
executive officer. He shall be the administrative head of all departments 
and shall be responsible for their efficient administration. 
Powers and duties: 

Nominations — He shall have sole authority to nominate to the board 
for appointment all assistant executive officers in charge of departments. 
He shall nominate all assistant superintendents in the educational depart- 
ment and all supervisors and principals. He shall nominate a chief attend- 
ance officer and a chief medical inspector. 

Appointments — No person shall be appointed or elected to any position 
if the chief executive officer disapproves of such appointment or elec- 
tion. He shall conduct or cause to be conducted all examinations, both 
written or oral, for positions as teachers. He shall have power to select 
and appoint all teachers subject only to disapproval by a five-sevenths vote 
of the board. 

Assignments and transfers — He shall make such assignments and reas- 
signments or transfers as in his professional judgment are necessary to 
secure the highest efficiency in teaching. 

Improvement of teachers in sermce — He shall be charged with the 
responsibility of all measures for the improvement of teachers in service. 
He shall at all times, with the aid of such professional assistance as he may 
command, labor for improvement in the efficiency of the teaching and 
supervisory staff. 

He shall keep detailed records of efforts and achievements in the direc- 
tion of improvement. The board does not desire to know how many 
visits of supervisors have been made or how many teachers' meetings 
have been held, but it demands a report upon the achievements of such 
visits and meetings. No teacher, principal or supervisor shall be dis- 
missed until the superintendent presents the records of efforts made to 
improve such teacher, principal or supervisor. 

That teachers may have adequate personal supervision, the board agrees 
to appoint such departmental and special supervisors as the superintendent 
deems necessary. The board demands that the superintendent and his 
assistants capitalize the success of especially capable teachers, and for 
that purpose the superintendent may require any teacher to observe the 
teaching of successful teachers at his discretion. He shall report the 



Appendix A 129 

amount of substitute service required for such purpose to the board for 
approval. He shall be permitted to order the dismissal of any room or 
grade for such attendance upon teachers' meetings as he deems advisable. 
He shall report the amount of such time granted to the board for ap- 
proval. He shall, with the aid of his assistants, from time to time issue 
bulletins, circulars and courses of study, containing suggestive methods for 
the guidance of teachers. He shall conduct such annual institutes as may 
be required by law, or as he may determine, and shall have power to ex- 
pend such amounts for the services of specialists in education as ap- 
proved in the budget. 

Leaves of absence — The superintendent may recommend teachers who 
have been in the employ of the board for a period of six years to be 
granted one year's leave of absence for study under conditions approved 
by him, such teachers to receive a salary equal to one-half of the salary 
regularly received, provided, however, that eligibility to such salary allow- 
ance shall be on condition that such teacher continue in the service of the 
system for three additional years. 

Salaries — The superintendent shall recommend the schedule of salaries 
to the board for approval. Such schedule shall provide minimum and 
maximum schedules and annual increases, said increases to be conditioned 
upon successful service approved by the superintendent. Increases be- 
yond the schedule increases or beyond the maximum for any class shall 
be conditioned upon extraordinary merit, and must be recommended by 
the superintendent and approved by the board. For the satisfactory com- 
pletion of courses in one summer term or its equivalent of such courses, 
and in such institutions as shall be approved by the superintendent, teach- 
ers shall, on recommendation of the superintendent, receive. a salary in- 
crease of $50. 

Removal of teachers — The superintendent may suspend teachers for 
cause. Such suspension shall be reported to the board. No teacher shall 
be recommended for dismissal except upon evidence that the superin- 
tendent has used every available means to improve the efficiency of the 
teacher in question without success. All removals shall be subject to 
contract terms, provided that teachers may be removed at any time for 
cause. 

Selection of text-hooks — The superintendent shall, with the aid of such 
professional assistance as may be available, select all text-books to be 
used in the schools, provided that all purchases shall be within the ap- 
propriation of the budget for text-books and provided the board may 
disapprove changes only by a five-sevenths vote. 

Courses of study — The superintendent shall propose the subjects to be 
taught. After approval by the board he shall, with such professional 
assistance as may be available, prepare minimum courses of study, includ- 
ing therein statements of principles and aims, suggestive methods and 



130 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

lesson plans. When such courses or important changes therein are pre- 
pared, he shall report them to the board, and unless disapproved by a 
five-sevenths vote of the board, they shall stand approved. He shall pre- 
scribe the distribution of time among the several subjects. He may 
authorize principals to make such variations from the allotted schedule 
as locality needs may demand. 

Initiating new policies — The superintendent of schools, as chief execu- 
tive officer, shall initiate all policies. 

The budget — He shall annually, with the assistance of the assistant 
superintendent in charge of business affairs, prepare the budget of ex- 
penditures and receipts for all departments. He shall recommend trans- 
fers of funds within the budget. The budget shall contain as a minimum 
the following information : 

1. A summary of proposed expenditures and probable receipts v/ith 
similar data in parallel columns for the present and the two 
preceding fiscal years. 

2. A detailed estimate of proposed expenditures for each department 
showing in parallel columns expenditures for the two preceding 
fiscal years, together with expenditures for corresponding items 
for the current fiscal year, including adjustments due to transfers 
between appropriations plus an estimate of the probable addi- 
tional expenditures and unappropriated balances for the re- 
mainder of the current fiscal year, together with the amount of 
supplies and materials on hand. 

3. Increases or decreases of requests compared with corresponding 
appropriations for current and previous years. 

All estimates shall be in terms of unit specifications accompanied by such 
data as may be necessary to show whether increases or decreases for 
any given item are due to changes in cost, in quality or in amount of 
materials or service to be purchased. 

Expenditures for each major item shall indicate the per cent which it 
represents of the total expenditures accompanied by similar figures for 
the present and the two preceding years, and for other cities of its class 
and locality. 

All expenditures for text-books, supplies, administrative control, super- 
vision, instruction, fuel, janitors' service and supplies shall be shown 
in per pupil cost terms. 

The proposed budget shall be accompanied by data showing the tax- 
able wealth per child, the amount of indebtedness, the tax rate for all pur- 
poses and for schools compared with similar expenditures in other cities 
of its class and locality. 

Such analytical data shall be accompanied by such graphic representa- 
tions as may be necessary to show the full effect thereof. 

The proposed budget shall be accompanied by brief statements of ex- 
planation in all instances where significant changes from previous years 
are proposed. 



Appendix A 131 

Buildings — The superintendent shall make recommendations to the 
board for the erection of new buildings and the alteration or improvement 
of old buildings. He shall recommend the location and shall approve all 
plans and specifications for construction. 

Supplies and equipment — The superintendent shall recommend all ap- 
paratus, supplies and equipment to be purchased and the specifications 
thereof to the board as a part of the detailed budget. No specifications 
shall be adopted without his approval. He may authorize expenditures 
not provided in the budget in such amounts as the board shall from time 
to time approve. 

By-laws and rules — The superintendent shall prepare and submit to the 
board for approval by-laws prescribing the authority and responsibility 
of executive officers. He shall prepare rules for the government of su- 
pervisors, principals, teachers and pupils. 

The superintendent's report — The superintendent shall report to the 
board on all important matters of administration. He shall make such 
reports as may be necessary to exhibit the efficiency of all departments. 
He shall accompany all proposed policies by such statistical data as may 
be necessary to show specifically past achievements and present conditions. 
He shall direct the preparation of the reports of all subordinate executive 
officers. He shall direct the records to be kept and reports to be made 
by principals, supervisors and teachers. 

The assistant superintendent in charge of business affairs — He shall 
perform his duties under the direction of the superintendent. He shall 
act as the financial and purchasing agent of the board. He shall have 
charge of the construction, operation and maintenance of buildings and 
equipment. 

He shall, under the direction of the superintendent, and within the limits 
of the detailed budget adopted by the board, make all purchases and ex- 
penditures. Such expenditures shall be reported to the board. 

He shall, when authorized by the board, invest the funds of the board, 
change securities and place insurance as the board may determine. 

He shall purchase all supplies, equipment and other materials as the 
superintendent may direct within the appropriation of the budget. 

He shall have authority to call for bids upon construction, fuel, sup- 
plies, equipment and other materials upon specifications approved by the 
board. He shall require all bids to be accompanied by a certified check 
in such proportion of the amount of the contract as the board may from 
time to time determine. 

He shall prepare, or cause to be prepared, under the direction of the su- 
perintendent, all plans and specifications for the construction of new 
buildings and improvements or alterations of old buildings. 

He shall recommend necessary repairs to the superintendent, who 
shall make all recommendations to the board for the erection or improve- 
ment of buildings. 



132 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

He shall audit claims, approve all bills, prepare all pay rolls and approve 
all payments on construction contracts. 

He shall nominate all subordinate officers in his department to the su- 
perintendent, and shall appoint all janitors and other employees of his 
department, subject to the approval of the superintendent. 

He shall prepare for the approval of the superintendent the necessary 
rules for the government of his department. 

He shall perform such other duties as the superintendent may direct. 

The report of the assistant superintendent in charge of business affairs — 
The assistant superintendent in charge of business affairs shall report cur- 
rently and at such other times as the board or the superintendent may 
direct. Such report shall be made to the chief executive for report to 
and examination by the board, giving all important matters of business 
transacted or pending and the financial status of the system. Such reports 
shall be adequate to show in detail the full effect of all transactions. 

He shall report upon the progress of construction and upon improve- 
ments made. 

Communications and complaints — All communications and complaints 
shall be presented to the secretary to the superintendent in writing. Other 
than formal and official communications shall be reduced to the form of a 
brief not to exceed 300 words in length. The superintendent and his 
assistants may, if they deem advisable, grant a hearing, either private or 
public, to the parties interested. Only in case satisfactory adjustment can- 
not be made by the superintendent and his assistants shall such com- 
munications or complaints be referred to the board. In such event the 
board, after considering the brief and additional evidence submitted by 
the superintendent will, if it deems advisable, grant a hearing to the 
parties interested. 

Amendments — These rules and regulations shall not be amended during 
the time of the superintendent's term of office, except as he shall approve, 
or in accord with the terms of his contract with the board. 



APPENDIX B 

In selecting the one hundred cities whose rules were to be con- 
sidered in this study, an effort was made to include cities of all 
sizes selected approximately at random. They were finally 
chosen from those whose rules were received at Bryson Library, 
Teachers College. Many cities which would have made de- 
sirable material for study were necessarily omitted because they 
had not published rules and regulations within recent years. To 
secure the required one hundred it was necessary to include some 
whose rules were not of as late date as might be desired. A 
number of these were received as late as October 1915 as the last 
rules published of the board. The cities of Table II were selected 
in a similar manner. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Business and Governmental 

Bagehot. The English Constitution. 

Business Management. Pub. A. W. Shaw Go. 

Dayton, Charter adopted Aug. 12, 1913. 

Dayton, Report of the City-Manager of, Jan.-June, 1914. 

Lowell. Government of England, 1908. 

Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. of N. Y. Charter and By-Laws, 1915. 

New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Co. Organization of the 

Operating Department, 1908. 
New York Telephone Co. Organization, 1912. 
Pennsylvania Railroad Co. By-Laws and Organization, 1913. 

Educational 
Ballou. The Appointment of Teachers in Cities. Harvard University 

Press, 1915. 
Bard. City School District. Teachers College Contributions to Educa- 
tion No. 28. 1909. 
CuBBERLEY. Public School Administration. Macmillan, 1916. 

133 



134 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

Deffenbagh. School Administration in the Smaller Cities. U. S. Bureau 
of Education, Bui., 1915, No. 44. 

Elliott. Fiscal Aspects of Public Education. Teachers College Con- 
tributions to Education No. 6, 1905. 

Moore, How New York Administers Its Schools. World Book Co., 
1913. 

Strayer. City School Expenditures. Teachers College Contributions to 
Education No. 5, 1905. 

Updegraff. a Study of Expenses of City School Systems. U. S. Bureau 
of Education, Bui., 1912, No. 5. 

Board Rules Referred to in This Study 

Norwalk. Rules and Regulations, 1914. 

Chester, Pa. Rules of the Board, 1915. 

Cleveland. Rules Governing the Board, 1915. 

Akron, Ohio. Rules and Regulations, 1914. 

New York. By-Laws of the Board, 1914. 

Salt Lake. Rules and Regulations, 1906. City Survey, 1915. 

Waltham, Mass. Rules and Regulations of the Public Schools, 1911. 

New Orleans. Rules and By-Laws of the Board of Directors, 1913. 

Wausau, Wis. General Regulations of the Public Schools, 1914. 

Grand Rapids. Rules of the Board, 1913. 

St. Louis. Rules and Charter of the Board, 1914. 

Yonkers, N. Y. By-Laws and Rules, 1914. 

Detroit. Rules of the Board, 1914. 

Rochester. Rules and Regulations of the Board, 1915. 

Fall River, Mass. Rules and Regulations, 1909. 

Minneapolis. By-Laws, 1915. 

Syracuse. By-Laws and Rules, 1913. 

Newton, Mass. Rules of the School Committee, 1911. 

Baltimore. Rules of the Board, 1913. 

New Haven. Rules and Regulations, 1910. Amend., 1915. 

Bridgeport, Conn. Rules of the Board, 1915. 

Newburyport, Mass. Rules of the School Committee, 1908. Amend., 

1915. 
Boston. Rules of the School Committee, 1915 (Proposed). 
Denver. By-Laws of the Board of Directors, 1916. 
Covington, Ky. Rules Governing the Board, 1914. 
Louisville. Rules Governing the Board, 1910. 
San Francisco. Rules and Regulations, 1910. 
Cedar Rapids, la. Rules and Regulations, 1914. 
St. Joseph. Rules and Regulations, 1913. 
Evansville, Ind. Rules and Regulations, 1914. 
Fort Worth. Rules and Regulations, 1913. 
Moline, 111. By-Laws and Rules, 1915. 
New Brunswick, N. J. By-Laws and School Regulations, 1915. 



Bibliography 135 

Elgin. 111. Rules of the Board. 1915. 

Spokane. Rules and Regulations, 1915. 

Houston. By-Laws of the Board of Trustees, 1914. 

Laramie, Wyo. Rules and Regulations, 1913. 

Lead, S. D. Rules and Regulations, 1908. 

Topeka. Rules and Regulations, 1914. 

Nashville. Rules, 1911. 

Chicago. Rules, 1910. 

Providence. By-Laws of the School Committee, 1914. 

Winston-Salem. Rules and Regulations, 1914. 

Sioux City, la. Rules and Regulations, 1912. 

Cape Girardeau. Rules and Regulations, 1914. 

Seattle, jlules and Regulations, 1908. 

Greeley, Colo. Rules and Regulations, 1912. 

Calumet, Mich. General Rules and Courses of Study of Public Schools, 

1913. 
Lebanon, Pa. Rules of the Board, 1914. 
Pawtucket, R. L Rules and Regulations, 1914. 
Portland, Ore. Rules and Regulations, 1915. 
Terre Haute. Rules and Regulations, 1914. 
Paterson. Rules of the Board, 1911. 
Richmond. By-Laws and Regulations, 1914. 
Brookline, Mass. Rules of the School Committee, 1914. 
Pittsfield, Mass. Rules and Regulations, 1911. 
Columbus, Ohio. Rules of the Board, 1910. 
Joliet, 111. Rules of the Board of School Inspectors, 1912. 
Omaha. Rules Governing the Schools, 1913. 
Lincoln, Neb. Rules, 1912. 
Indianapolis. Rules, 1911. 

Beverley, Mass. Rules and Regulations, 1912. 
Brockton, Mass. Rules of the School Committee, 1915. 
Central Falls, R. I. Rules and Regulations of the School Committee, 1914. 
Westport, Mass. Rules and Regulations, 1909. 
Waterbury, Conn. Rules and Regulations, 1914. 
Philadelphia. By-Laws and Rules, 1914. 

Harrisburg. Rules and Regulations of the School District, 1912. 
Schenectady. By-Laws and Rules, 1908. 

Pine Bluffs, Ark. Rules and Regulations of the Public Schools, 1914. 
Fort Smith, Ark. Rules and Regulations, 1911. 
Montgomery, Ala. Rules and Regulations, 1914. 
Manchester, N. H. Rules of the School Committee, 1915. 
Joplin, Mo. Rules and Regulations, 1915. 
Lockport, N. Y. Rules and Regulations, 1910. 
Freeport, N. Y. Rules and Regulations, 1914. 
Everett, Wash. Rules and Regulations, 1912. 
Oakland, Cal. Rules and Regulations, 1910. 



136 The City Superintendent and the Board of Education 

Fargo, N. D. Rules and Regulations, 1913. 

Charleston, S. C. Rules for the Government of the Public Schools, 1912. 

Boulder, Colo. By-Laws and Rules, 1914. 

Wakefield, Mass. Rules and Regulations of the School Committee, 1910. 

Wichita. By-Laws and Rules, 1913. 

Johnstown, Pa. Rules and Regulations, 1912. Amend., 1915. 

Charlotte, N. C. By-Laws and Rules, 1916. 

Columbia, S. C. Rules and Regulations, 1913. 

Racine, Wis. Rules and Regulations, 1910. 

Newport, Ky. Rules and Regulations, 1910. 

Worcester, Mass. Rules of the School Committee, 1913. 

Milton, Mass. Rules and Regulations, 1913. 

Holyoke, Mass. Rules and Regulations, 1913. 

Lawrence, Mass. Rules of the School Committee, 1912. 

Kansas City, Mo. Rules and Regulations, 1909. 

West Point, Neb. Regulations Governing the Board, 1910. 

Pierce, Neb. Rules, unpublished. 

Cortland, N. Y. By-Laws and Rules, 1912. 

Fremont, Neb. Rules, unpublished. 

Portland, Me. Rules and Regulations, 1912. 

Middleton, N. Y. Rules and Regulations, 1915. 

Winchester, Mass. Rules and Regulations, 1912. 

Board Minutes Referred to in This Study 

Seattle. Oct. 18, 1915. 

Pittsburg. Nov. 10, 24, Dec. 9, 24, 1913 ; Jan. 5, 20, 1914. 

St. Louis. April 13, May 11, 28, June 8, July 13, Sept. 14, Oct. 5, 8, 12, 

1915. 
Reading. June 16, July 6, 21, Aug. 18, Sept. 15, Oct. 20, Nov. 17, 1914. 
Worcester. May 4, June 1, 28, Sept. 7, Oct. 5, Nov. 2, 1915. 
Newark. April 29, May 27, June 8, 18, 24, 30, July 29, Aug. 26, Sept. 30, 

1915. 
Albany. June 7, 28, July 6, 19, Aug. 5, Sept. 20, Oct. 4, Nov. 1, 1915. 
Milwaukee. June 1, 30, July 6, Aug. 3, Sept. 7, Oct. 5, 1915. 
Somerville. March 1, 9, 29, April 26, May 24, June 28, Sept. 1, 27, 1915. 
Lancaster. June 1, July 6, Aug. 5, Sept. 2, Oct. 7, Nov. 4, 1915. 
Muskegon. July 9, 16, Aug. 13, Sept. 1, 10, 17, 1915. 
East Orange. Oct. 1, 11, 25, Nov. 8, 22, 1915. 
Grand Rapids. May 3, 17, 24, June 7, 21, 23, July 6, Aug. 2, 23, Sept. 7, 

20, Oct. 4, 18, 1915. 
Lincoln. July 6, 15, 27, Aug. 12, 25, Sept. 1, 7, 21, 30, Oct. 8, 19, 1915. 
Omaha. July 6, 16, Aug. 2, 16, Sept. 7, 20, Oct. 4, 18, Nov. 1, 15, 1915. 
Fremont. April 7, 24, May 6, June 7, July 7, Aug. 2, Sept. 6, Oct. 4, 1915. 
West Point. June 7, Aug. 2, 5, 23, Sept. 16, Oct. 4, Nov. 1, Dec. 6, 1915. 
Pierce. June 14, July 12, 27, Sept. 9, 14, Nov. 10, 24, Dec. 14, 1915. 



Bibliography 137 

Schenectady. May 11, June 8, IS, 22, July 13, Sept. 9, Oct. 12, Not. 9, Dec. 

2, 17, 1915. 
Dunkirk. Sept. 13, Oct. 11, 19, 23, 1915. 
Millville. Oct. 6, Nov. 3, 1915. 
Topeka. Dec. 6, 9, 13, 1915 ; Jan. 3, 1916. 
Framingham. Oct. 4, 18, Nov. 1, IS, Dec. 6, 21, 1915. 
Whitehall. Nov. 8, 22, 1915. 

La Porte. Aug. 2, 14, 16, Oct. 4, Nov. 1, Dec. 6, 1915. 
Benton Harbor. Dec. 4, 1915; Jan. 8, 10, 1916. 
Boise. July 12, Aug. 23, 31, Sept. 13, Oct. 13, 27, 1915. 
Bloomington. Sept. 11, Oct. 22, Nov. 5, 22, 1915. 
Kewanee. Nov. 2, Dec. 7, 1915. 
Burlington. June 4, 11, 17, 26, July 2, Aug. 4, Sept. 3, 13, Oct. 1, Nov. 5, 

1915. 
Paducah. Sept. 3, Oct. 6, Nov. 3, 1915. 
Salem. Sept. 13, 20, Oct. 11, 25, Nov. 1, 10, 22, 1915. 
Council Bluffs. March 15, Sept. 7, Oct. 5, 1915. 
New Orleans. Aug. 26, Nov. 24, 1915. 
Richmond. Oct. 22, Nov. 22, 30, Dec. 17, 1915. 
Carthage. Oct. 5, Nov. 2, 9, Dec. 7, 1915. 
Owatonna. July 6, Oct. 6, 8, Nov. 2, Dec. 7, 1915. 
Martins Ferry. June 25, 30, July 9, 22, Aug. 5, 16, 26, Sept. 6, 20, 30, Oct. 

18, 28, Nov. 15, 23, 1915. 
Waterloo. March 18, 26, April 1, 15, 1913. * 

Bellaire. Nov. 15, 1915. 
Mansfield. Sept. 15, 21, Oct. 2, 5, 1915. 
Plattsmouth. Oct. 4, Nov. 1, Dec. 6, 1915. 
Wichita. Oct. 4, 8, 1915. 
Lead. Nov. 12, 1915. 

San Antonio. Oct. 16, 19, Nov. 2, Dec. 8, 1915. 
Mitchell. July 30, Sept. 8, 1915. 
Des Moines. July 27, Oct. 12, 19, 1915. 
Winfield. Oct. 1, Nov. 1, Dec. 6, 13, 1915. 
Kalamazoo. May 18, 27, June 1, 7, 15, July 6, 15, 20, Aug. 3, Sept. 7, 21, 

Oct. 5, 19, 1915. 
Ypsilanti. Sept. 9, 16, Oct. 5, IS, 16, 27, Nov. 5, Dec. 7, 1915. 
Chatham. July 27, Aug. 31, Sept. 28, Oct. 26, Nov. 30, Dec. 28, 1915. 
Louisville. July 13 and 23,i Oct. 30, Nov. 2, 1915. 
Montclair. Oct. 26, Nov. 9, 23, 1915. 
Bridgeport. Dec. 14, 29, 1915 ; Jan. 10, 16, Feb. 10, 1916. 
Chicago. Dec. 8, 10, 22, 1915 ; Jan. 5, 19, 1916. 

Jersey City. June 2, 16, 23, 30, July 7, 21, 26, Aug. 18, 30, Sept. 1, 1915. 
Cleveland. Sept. 7, 13, 20, 27, 1915. 

Elizabeth. Oct. 8, 20, Nov. 12, Dec. 10, 1914; Jan. 14, 28, 1915. 
New York. Sept. 15, 29, Oct. 13, 27, 1915. 
Los Angeles. Jan. 20, 24, 1916. 



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